March 12, 2013

John Brennan’s Heavy Baggage

from Consortium News:



John Brennan’s Heavy Baggage
March 11, 2013

Exclusive: After a messy confirmation — which asked new questions about drone assassinations and old questions about enhanced interrogations — John Brennan has taken over at CIA. But his past may not be so easily forgotten in a world looking for accountability, writes ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.

By Ray McGovern


John Brennan brings heavy baggage to his new job as CIA Director – legal as well as moral – arguably making it risky for him to travel to more than 150 countries that are party to the United Nations Convention Against Torture.

It must be hard for Brennan to recognize that he cannot land in Europe, for example, without fear of being arrested and arraigned for kidnapping (also known as “extraordinary rendition”) and torture (now antiseptically called “EIT” for “enhanced interrogation techniques,” which, by the way, is a direct translation of verschaerfte Vernehmungright out of the Gestapo handbook).

For a freshly confirmed CIA Director it is de rigueur to pay an early call on European counterparts. I remember preparing a briefing book for that purpose just before a new CIA Director named George H. W. Bush took off for the UK, Germany and France in the early spring of 1976. Unfortunately for Brennan, there may be complications to enjoying April in Paris – like a possible knock on the door from a French prosecutor and the gendarmes.

Given Brennan’s role as a senior CIA official during President George W. Bush’s “dark side” days of waterboarding detainees, renditioning suspects to Mideast torture centers and making up intelligence to invade Iraq, Brennan’s advisers are sure to remind him that he may be in as much jeopardy of being arrested as former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. ....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://consortiumnews.com/2013/03/11/john-brennans-heavy-baggage/

March 12, 2013

Universities Pile on Faculty Perks as Student Costs Grow

(Bloomberg) The University of Chicago paid James Madara $2.5 million in severance when he stepped down in 2009 as medical dean and hospital chief. Madara, who remained on the faculty, later joined the American Medical Association.

Congress is taking a look at such payments following disclosures that Jacob Lew, the new U.S. Treasury secretary, received a $685,000 bonus when he left New York University and had $1.5 million in housing loans from the school.

Harvard and Stanford universities also offer real-estate loans with sweet terms, records show. While the amounts are small relative to university budgets, the perks insulate faculty and administrators from the costs upsetting many middle-class families, said Jonathan Robe, a research fellow at the Center for College Affordability and Productivity in Washington.

“It certainly gives the public a clear example of how out of touch some universities are,” Robe said. “Parents will think, ‘Here I am scraping by, raiding my retirement plan to pay for college. Why are they making me do this just to enrich these executives?”’ ...................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-12/universities-pile-on-faculty-perks-as-student-costs-grow.html

March 12, 2013

Price for Denial, Inaction on Climate Is Higher Than Toll of Reducing Consumption

Price for Denial, Inaction on Climate Is Higher Than Toll of Reducing Consumption

Monday, 11 March 2013 14:58
By Karen Rybold Chin, Truthout | Video Interview





For Tad Patzek, Peak Oil - not climate change - poses the greatest risk to human health and survival on Earth.

The chair of the Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering at the University of Texas and co-author with Joseph Tainter of Drilling Down: The Gulf Oil Debacle and Our Energy Dilemma, Patzek does not deny climate change or the notion that the human use of CO2 has helped caused it. It's just that climate change has already been set in motion, and it will take 80,000 to 100,000 years to reverse it. This is, the Polish-born Patzek says, "for us, an infinite time."

In the grand scheme of things then, the more immediate threat to human health, economies and quality of life is when our transportation systems' need for oil outpaces our civilization's ability to refine it. ...................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://truth-out.org/news/item/15058-price-for-denial-inaction-on-climate-is-higher-than-toll-of-reducing-consumption

March 12, 2013

Commuters give up the 'ball and chain'

[font size="1"]Public transit ridership shot up by 154 million rides in 2012, a study says. In Utah, commuter train ridership increased nearly 15%[/font]


(CNN) -- When Ann Arbor, Michigan, advertising executive Al McWilliams finished high school in the late 1990s, he made a vow.

He swore he would "never, ever again" commute to work by car, "no matter what I was doing in life."

Most of his teen friends were getting their first cars and feeling free, but McWilliams didn't see it like that.

For him, freedom was being able to spend three hours a day doing something other than driving to and from private school. Driving was "oppressive," and his VW GTI felt like a "ball and chain."

Flash-forward to the present. McWilliams, now 32, either walks or rides the bus to his office every day, making his way to the back of the Route 5 bus, where he'll find a window seat and maybe enjoy a nice book. ..................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/11/travel/us-public-transportation-report/index.html?c&page=2

March 12, 2013

Post-Sandy Repairs To NYC Subway Will Cause Years Of Disruption

(New York, NY – WNYC) Expect delays. That’s the message from the NY Metropolitan Transportation Authority as it readies to spend $2 billion in federal relief aid to make more thorough repairs to the subway after Sandy.

Flooding from the storm coated thousands of electrical components in parts of the system with corrosive salt water. The MTA says riders can expect more frequent interruptions of service as those switches, signals, and other parts are replaced.

Immediately after Sandy, the NY MTA scrambled to get the subway up and running, sometimes with components that were damaged by flooding but hastily cleaned and pressed back into service. Much of that equipment is functioning with a lowered life span, and will now begin to be replaced.

That means a lot of repair work will be happening in the subways over roughly the next two years. MTA executive director Tom Prendergast says the work will cause more line shutdowns, called “outages.” ....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://transportationnation.org/2013/03/12/sandy-repairs-to-nyc-subway-will-cause-years-of-disruption/

March 12, 2013

Chicago police sergeants reject Emanuel contract offer

from the Chicago Tribune:



Chicago police sergeants on Monday overwhelmingly rejected a proposed contract that Mayor Rahm Emanuel had called a blueprint for restoring financial soundness to the city’s woefully underfunded pension systems.

The sergeants union voted 876-134 against the contract, a result that left Emanuel expressing disappointment and the leader of the Fraternal Order of Police crowing.

“The sergeants are certainly more rational than their union representatives,” said FOP President Michael Shields, who last month wrote a letter urging them to reject the proposed contract endorsed.

“It was clear that they realized this was not a good deal for themselves,” Shields added. “This was only a good deal for City Hall.” ..............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/clout/chi-chicago-police-sergeants-reject-emanuel-contract-offer-20130311,0,5625759.story

March 12, 2013

School SWAT Team: Texas School District Assembles Specially Trained Unit For Potential Threats

A Texas school district has assembled a SWAT team to bolster school safety, local NBC affiliate KVEO reports. The decision comes after the Dec. 14 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Following the Connecticut massacre, the Edinburg Consolidated Independent School District dispatched police officers to all its elementary schools in order to strengthen security.

Though the project, dubbed Operation Safeguard, was suspended in January after Edinburg CISD police chief Rick Perez announced schools were safe, the district decided to put together a special SWAT -- Special Weapons And Tactics -- unit to prepare for potential future threats.

According to school officials, the district's proximity to the United States-Mexico border was also a factor in the decision, ABC affiliate KRGV reports. ..................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/11/school-swat-team-texas-district_n_2854357.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009

March 11, 2013

London's Calling.......bicyclists

from Grist:


Those lucky jerks in London are getting a frickin’ bicycle highway
By Sarah Laskow


London may be the world’s newest best cycling city. Mayor Boris Johnson has announced that the city will be spending a whopping $1.51 billion on better bike infrastructure — including a 15-mile bicycle highway that will connect the west and east sections of the city.

There are, oh, a gabillion reasons why this is a great idea. But here are the reasons Johnson gave for spending all this money on cycling:



Besides the highway, there will be more fully- and semi-segregated bike lanes pretty much everywhere in the city. Johnson says he’s not promising that London “will become Amsterdam any time soon.” But no one needs London to be Amsterdam. It just needs to be its big, old, messy self — with more bicycles.




http://grist.org/list/those-lucky-jerks-in-london-are-getting-a-frickin-bicycle-highway/

March 11, 2013

Banksters feel that they're underpaid

They might be getting paid more than the rest of us, but that doesn't mean they're complaining less.

More than two-thirds of financial professionals said they were unsatisfied with their pay package last year, according to a recent survey from recruiting firm Selby Jennings. But despite the fact that the average Wall Street salary was $363,000 last year, bankers are still more likely to feel underpaid than their counterparts in other industries.

About one in three workers say they work in a job that is too high-stress and pays too little, according to a recent survey from the American Psychological Association. And about 20 percent of workers said in an August 2012 Gallup poll that they aren’t “satisfied” or “completely satisfied” with their pay.

So why, when bankers make about $300,000 more than the rest of us on average, are they so much more upset? It could be because lawmakers and the media have focused on banker salaries in the wake of the financial crisis. Critics argue that financial industry staffers get paid too much, especially considering the bailouts their companies have received. .........................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/11/bankers-underpaid_n_2853961.html?ir=Politics&ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009

March 11, 2013

Nuclear Industry Withers in U.S. as Wind Pummels Prices

(Bloomberg) A glut of government-subsidized wind power may help accomplish a goal some environmentalists have sought for decades: kill off U.S. nuclear power plants while reducing reliance on electricity from burning coal.

That’s the assessment of executives and utility experts after the U.S. wind-energy industry went on a $25 billion growth binge in 2012, racing to qualify for a federal tax credit that was set to expire at year’s end.

The surge added a record 13,124 megawatts of wind turbines to the nation’s power grid, up 28 percent from 2011. The new wind farms increased financial pressure on traditional generators such as Dominion Resources (D) Inc. and Exelon Corp. in their operating regions. That’s because wind energy undercut power prices already driven to 10-year-lows by an abundance of natural gas.

“Right now, natural gas and wind power are more economic than nuclear power in the Midwestern electricity market,” Howard Learner, executive director of the Environmental Law and Policy Center, a Chicago-based advocate of cleaner energy, said in a phone interview. “It’s a matter of economic competitiveness.” ................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-11/nuclear-industry-withers-in-u-s-as-wind-pummels-prices-energy.html