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Officer ‘Go F*ck Yourself’ Out of a Job After Pointing Gun at Ferguson Protesters
By Joe Coscarelli
St. Ann police Lieutenant Ray Albers, better known as Officer “Go Fuck Yourself,” has resigned after pointing his rifle at protesters in Ferguson and telling them, “I will fucking kill you.” An internal inquiry recommended he either resign or be fired for the incident, which was caught on video, although the local police chief insists Albers raising his weapon was “totally justifiable.” Well, not totally, apparently.
From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
“That's why he used those words,” said Jiminez, who added, “I'm not condoning his behavior whatsoever.” (Maybe just a little bit.)
Officer Matthew Pappert of the nearby Glendale Police Department has also been fired following a suspension for racist Facebook postings about the protests. Pappert’s public suggestions included that the demonstrators (“a burden on society and a blight on the community,” “thugs”) be “put down like rabid dogs.” He added, “Where is a Muslim with a backpack when you need them?”
more
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/08/2-cops-fired-over-ferguson-protests.html
Ebola virus mutating rapidly as it spreads
On 24 May, Augustine Goba received a blood sample from a pregnant woman in Sierra Leone who had fallen ill after attending the funeral of an Ebola victim in Guinea. Twenty-four hours later, the test results came back positive. Goba, who directs a diagnostic lab at Kenema Government Hospital in Sierra Leone, had confirmed the country's first case of Ebola.
He and his colleagues have now decoded the genetic sequences of 99 Ebola viruses collected from 78 patients during the first 24 days of the epidemic in Sierra Leone. The work1, published online in Science, could help to inform the design of diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines, says structural biologist Erica Ollmann Saphire of The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. “This paper is terrific,” she adds.
The Ebola epidemic in West Africa has already killed more than 1,400 people — including five of Goba's co-authors from Kenema. The paper is dedicated to their memory.
The sequence data, which were made publicly available by 31 July, constitute the largest collection of genetic information on Ebola ever to be released. To get them, the group collected leftover blood from samples taken for diagnostic tests in Kenema. They then used a chemical solution to deactivate the Ebola viruses, and sent the samples to be sequenced at the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
more
http://www.nature.com/news/ebola-virus-mutating-rapidly-as-it-spreads-1.15777?WT.mc_id=TWT_NatureNews
An essential movement in the face of wage inequality
Organized labor is on the rebound in the United States for one overriding reason — never have we needed unions more than we do right now.
There is a growing recognition in virtually every sector of our society, even among key Wall Street analysts, that this country is being badly hurt by galloping income disparity. When both the International Monetary Fund and Wall Street rating agency Standard & Poor’s release reports detailing how the widening gap between the top and the bottom is stifling growth, it is clear we have a serious problem.
Income inequality is the worst it has been in 85 years, even as income growth among the wealthiest continues to rapidly outpace everyone else. Since 2009, 95 percent of economic gains have gone to the top one percent of earners.
As the IMF and S&P studies make clear, this drags down our entire economy. It’s also a disaster for the middle class, where the constant downward pressure on wages is stagnating earnings. It is a blow to our American vision of ourselves and the cherished idea that anyone who works hard can make it in this country. But the worst toll is being exacted on the lowest-paid among us — workers at Walmart and McDonald’s; highly educated and poorly paid adjunct professors; the homecare workers who tend to people with disabilities and the elderly; taxi drivers and baggage handlers — all of whom are being left out of the American Dream.
More and more Americans are saying it is simply wrong to work a 40-hour week, only to go home to a shelter, eat at a soup kitchen, or be told by your wealthy corporate employer that you should go apply for food stamps.
That’s why labor is back.
more
http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2014/08/28/essential-movement-face-wage-inequality/gBcoRz1dlD14Ukms91n4uN/story.html
Wisconsin faces $281 million budget shortfall
Wisconsin tax collections for the past year came in 2 percent short of estimates, the state Department of Revenue reported Thursday, news that won't require immediate emergency action by the Legislature but that puts the state's budget on track to be out of balance next year.
The figures show the state collected $281.2 million less for the fiscal year that ended in June than was anticipated by the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau.
Gov. Scott Walker and the Republican-controlled Legislature have cut taxes by nearly $2 billion since Walker took office in 2011, including $500 million in March, a fact they've trumpeted on the campaign trail but that Democrats say has put the state's budget in jeopardy.
On Thursday, Walker and Republicans went into damage control, saying the economy is still heading in the right direction but ignoring the fact that the news means the budget will not be balanced next year. The figures come just over two months before the election in a race for governor that's focused heavily on which candidate is better for the state's economy.
Democrats said the news is evidence that the Republican agenda isn't working and it's time for a change.
"Scott Walker has no one to blame but himself and the Republican lawmakers who have driven Wisconsin's economy right into the ditch," said Democratic state Sen. Bob Jauch, a former member of the Legislature's budget committee.
Read more: http://host.madison.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/state-faces-million-budget-shortfall/article_f3439476-3ca1-51c4-a51b-a0c6505a22e5.html
US State Department underestimates carbon pollution from Keystone XL
by John Abraham
This is like the movie Groundhog Day. I seem forever forced to correct the State Department’s errant analysis of Alberta tar sands emissions. Now, however, other people are agreeing with me. A recent paper published in Nature Climate Change reviewed the State Department’s accounting and found it deeply flawed.
The authors, Peter Erickson and Michael Lazarus of the Stockholm Institute included the impacts of Keystone on the global oil markets. This inclusion tripled the climate change impact of the Keystone pipeline compared to the State Department’s analysis. Let’s get into the study to see the reason for the change and also to understand why even this new analysis is flawed.
First, the State Department assesses the impact of tar sands by assuming it will merely displace, barrel for barrel, some other oil extracted somewhere else on the planet. Therefore, the State Department analysis only counts the incremental emissions for tar sands. Tar sands are approximately 17% worse in terms of emissions than other fuels (it depends on which fuel is the reference); the State Department only counts these extra emissions.
What the new study does is ask, how will the Keystone pipeline increase oil extraction globally? For instance, if oil prices decrease because of Keystone, then more oil will be extracted (up to 0.6 barrels more per barrel of tar sands). They reason, correctly, that an honest account must include the increased extraction.
more
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2014/aug/28/state-department-underestimates-keystone-carbon-pollution
It's just fine for Police to run into and kill innocent bystanders in LA
Police Officer Will Not Be Charged For Killing Napster Exec While Texting-While-Driving — Because It's Apparently Okay For Police To Do That
By JIM EDWARDS
Los Angeles sheriff's deputy Andrew Wood will not be charged for fatally running over former Napster COO Milton Olin Jr. in his patrol car while the officer was typing a message into his computer.
We first saw the news on Valleywag but there is good coverage in the Daily News and LAist, too.
The instance exposes the different way that law enforcement officials are treated versus civilians in cases where a person is killed due to texting-while-driving.
It's illegal to text and drive in California; the state has a specific law against it. Civilians caught doing it can expect to face charges. But a report from the Los Angeles District Attorney's office shows that the rules may be applied differently to cops.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/police-officer-will-not-be-charged-in-killing-of-napster-executive-2014-8
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