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n2doc
n2doc's Journal
n2doc's Journal
May 9, 2016
If you’ve visited the DMV in the last few weeks, you may have noticed that you can now complete your voter registration at the same time you renew your driver’s license — without having to fill out a separate form.
But it's a little more complicated than that.
Unless voters also stop to answer questions at a computer terminal in another room, they will be registered as having no party preference. Voter advocates say this two-step process could disenfranchise thousands of voters, especially those who still want to vote in the Republican Party's closed presidential primary.
Since the terminals were rolled out April 1, the Department of Motor Vehicles has registered more than 14,000 voters in its offices statewide. Of those, 4,747 people — more than one-third — did not complete questions posed at the touch screens.
The machines, located in a separate room and typically used to administer written driver's tests, now ask several optional questions, including language preference, if a person wants to be a permanent vote-by-mail voter and party preference.
“We really think people are going to slip through the cracks here,” says Lori Shellenberger, voting rights director for the ACLU of California, which last year threatened to sue the DMV over voter registration issues.
more
http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-dmv-voter-registration-20160509-snap-story.html
California Berners: If you registered to vote at the DMV, check again
If you’ve visited the DMV in the last few weeks, you may have noticed that you can now complete your voter registration at the same time you renew your driver’s license — without having to fill out a separate form.
But it's a little more complicated than that.
Unless voters also stop to answer questions at a computer terminal in another room, they will be registered as having no party preference. Voter advocates say this two-step process could disenfranchise thousands of voters, especially those who still want to vote in the Republican Party's closed presidential primary.
Since the terminals were rolled out April 1, the Department of Motor Vehicles has registered more than 14,000 voters in its offices statewide. Of those, 4,747 people — more than one-third — did not complete questions posed at the touch screens.
The machines, located in a separate room and typically used to administer written driver's tests, now ask several optional questions, including language preference, if a person wants to be a permanent vote-by-mail voter and party preference.
“We really think people are going to slip through the cracks here,” says Lori Shellenberger, voting rights director for the ACLU of California, which last year threatened to sue the DMV over voter registration issues.
more
http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-dmv-voter-registration-20160509-snap-story.html
May 9, 2016
Yiru Sun was radiant in bridal white Saturday — even though she had called off her wedding at the last minute, instead turning her reception into a feast for the poor.
The pretty Manhattan insurance executive was supposed to tie the knot in a lavish Upper East Side wedding Saturday. But after balking at the proposed prenup, she turned her heartbreak — and her non-refundable $8,000 reception deposit — into something beautiful: a luncheon for 60 needy kids and their families.
“I should have been the bride. It was canceled,” Sun told her guests at the elegant Harold Pratt House at East 68th Street and Park Avenue. “Initially I felt frustrated,” said Sun, a vice president at New York Life Insurance, declining to dish about her former betrothed, not even to name him.
“I don’t want to sign things I don’t feel comfortable with,” is all she’ll reveal of the prenup dust-up.
“Three weeks later, I woke up with this idea,” Sun, herself a single mom of a 6-year-old daughter, told her guests, who were chosen with help from The Salvation Army and Inwood House.
more
http://nypost.com/2016/05/08/bride-wont-sign-prenup-throws-wedding-party-for-poor-instead/
Bride won’t sign prenup, throws ‘wedding party’ for poor kids instead
Yiru Sun was radiant in bridal white Saturday — even though she had called off her wedding at the last minute, instead turning her reception into a feast for the poor.
The pretty Manhattan insurance executive was supposed to tie the knot in a lavish Upper East Side wedding Saturday. But after balking at the proposed prenup, she turned her heartbreak — and her non-refundable $8,000 reception deposit — into something beautiful: a luncheon for 60 needy kids and their families.
“I should have been the bride. It was canceled,” Sun told her guests at the elegant Harold Pratt House at East 68th Street and Park Avenue. “Initially I felt frustrated,” said Sun, a vice president at New York Life Insurance, declining to dish about her former betrothed, not even to name him.
“I don’t want to sign things I don’t feel comfortable with,” is all she’ll reveal of the prenup dust-up.
“Three weeks later, I woke up with this idea,” Sun, herself a single mom of a 6-year-old daughter, told her guests, who were chosen with help from The Salvation Army and Inwood House.
more
http://nypost.com/2016/05/08/bride-wont-sign-prenup-throws-wedding-party-for-poor-instead/
May 8, 2016
A San Diego police officer who killed a man in a 2015 shooting in the Midway District that is now the subject of a federal civil rights lawsuit accidentally fired his gun into a crib during a probation check in February.
Officer Neal Browder was with other officers on Bayview Heights Place about 8:40 a.m. on Feb. 20 when the shooting happened, said San Diego police Lt. Scott Wahl. He said police conducted an investigation, but he declined to give more details.
Residents at the apartment, located Friday by San Diego Union-Tribune Watchdog, described the accidental shooting.
“If my son had been in that crib, he wouldn’t be here today,” said Kimberly Espinoza, 17, who lives in the apartment with her son, Isaac, then 11 months old, her 54-year-old grandmother, and a 30-year-old uncle who was the subject of the routine probation check.
“And if he was in it, and it had missed my son, he would still be traumatized,” she said.
more
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-san-diego-officer-shoot-crib-20160508-story.html
Officer in fatal shooting accidentally fires into baby's crib during routine parole visit
A San Diego police officer who killed a man in a 2015 shooting in the Midway District that is now the subject of a federal civil rights lawsuit accidentally fired his gun into a crib during a probation check in February.
Officer Neal Browder was with other officers on Bayview Heights Place about 8:40 a.m. on Feb. 20 when the shooting happened, said San Diego police Lt. Scott Wahl. He said police conducted an investigation, but he declined to give more details.
Residents at the apartment, located Friday by San Diego Union-Tribune Watchdog, described the accidental shooting.
“If my son had been in that crib, he wouldn’t be here today,” said Kimberly Espinoza, 17, who lives in the apartment with her son, Isaac, then 11 months old, her 54-year-old grandmother, and a 30-year-old uncle who was the subject of the routine probation check.
“And if he was in it, and it had missed my son, he would still be traumatized,” she said.
more
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-san-diego-officer-shoot-crib-20160508-story.html
May 8, 2016
Droves of baby starfish are returning to California's shores after a wasting disease decimated whole populations of the creatures over the past two years along the West Coast.
Data collected by Oregon State University researchers show an unprecedented number of baby starfish, or sea stars, survived the summer and winter of 2015.
"Most of the adults—the larger animals—were gone, or at least a large fraction of them," Bruce Menge, an Oregon State marine biology professor who co-authored the report told KPCC. "And what we saw sort of in their place was literally thousands to probably millions of baby sea stars."
Menge believes the surge is due to the lack of adults. Fewer grown-up starfish means less competition for the limited food supply. Now that juveniles are gorging themselves, many more of them are living into the spring.
more
http://www.scpr.org/news/2016/05/08/60418/starfish-babies-return-in-droves-following-massive/
Starfish babies return in droves following massive die-off
Droves of baby starfish are returning to California's shores after a wasting disease decimated whole populations of the creatures over the past two years along the West Coast.
Data collected by Oregon State University researchers show an unprecedented number of baby starfish, or sea stars, survived the summer and winter of 2015.
"Most of the adults—the larger animals—were gone, or at least a large fraction of them," Bruce Menge, an Oregon State marine biology professor who co-authored the report told KPCC. "And what we saw sort of in their place was literally thousands to probably millions of baby sea stars."
Menge believes the surge is due to the lack of adults. Fewer grown-up starfish means less competition for the limited food supply. Now that juveniles are gorging themselves, many more of them are living into the spring.
more
http://www.scpr.org/news/2016/05/08/60418/starfish-babies-return-in-droves-following-massive/
May 7, 2016
Interior secretary: ‘Keep it in the ground’ activists 'naive'
By Timothy Cama - 05/06/16 01:08 PM EDT
Interior Secretary Sally Jewell had harsh criticism for activists who want to dramatically reduce the production of fossil fuels.
Jewell said the activists, who call their movement “keep it in the ground,” ignore the fact that for the time being, the country is dependent on oil, natural gas and coal.
“It’s going to take a very long time before we can wean ourselves from fossil fuels, so I think that to keep it in the ground is naive, to say we could shift to 100 percent renewables is naïve,” Jewell told The Desert Sun newspaper after a California event to dedicate new national monuments in the desert.
“We really have to have a blend over time, and a transition over time, that recognizes the real complexity of what we're dealing with,” she said.
more
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/279014-interior-secretary-slams-keep-it-in-the-ground-activists
Why do I have this feeling that "a very long time" will be the same as the time it takes to extract every last bit of fossil fuel from the Earth?
In the meantime we can all fry. It is far more important that the Koch's, ExxonMobil, and coal mining co's get their fucking investment returns maximized.
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