Dallas News: Texas prohibits nearly 70 percent of its counties from having a fire code

The West Fertilizer plant blast killed 15 and injured 200, while demolishing the factory and some of the neighborhood. The plant was in a county that could have had a fire code, unlike 173 counties in Texas. Even after the April blast, the Legislature failed to change the law that allows codes only in counties with more than 250,000 people or and in adjacent counties. 

Randy Lee Loftis, Environmental Writer 

DallasNews.com

25 May 2013

Despite the lessons from the West Fertilizer Co. fire and explosions about the value of fire prevention, site security and safe storage of dangerous goods, Texas prohibits nearly 70 percent of its counties from having a fire code.

Fire codes aren’t just for fires. They also contain rules for managing explosive or toxic chemicals, including specific guidelines for ammonium-nitrate fertilizer, the substance that exploded and killed 15 people and injured 200 in West on April 17.

Fire code rules emerge from tragic history.

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CNN coverage of March Against Monsanto

Face The Nation: Extreme weather patterns and the possible role of climate change

The Daily Show Exclusive - George Packer extended interview

Exclusive - George Packer extended interview
16 May 2013
In this exclusive, unedited interview, "The Unwinding" author George Packer investigates the systemic failure of American government and institutions.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,The Daily Show on Facebook

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,The Daily Show on Facebook

How the NRA is like the Westboro Baptist Church

Liberals Unite | http://samuel-warde.com
14 May 2013

John Fugelesang takes on the NRA comparing it to the Westboro Baptist Church in this entertaining monologue.

Maybe you’re someone who, like the majority of Americans, supports the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms, but you feel kind of creepy about the weapons-grade cretins who run the NRA and do all they can to keep Americans safe from any gun laws that might keep Americans safe.

Well, you’re not alone. And this is why: loving the Second Amendment while opposing the NRA is every bit as natural as loving Jesus while opposing the Westboro Baptist Church.



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Koch brothers aim to buy Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune — to make them more conservative?

How to construct a tragedy in Bangladesh | M. Wuerker

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Two degrees of separation: Tsarnaev brothers had a CIA Connection

Dave Lindorff  | thiscantbehappening.net
30 April 2013

"Look, I said before I’m not a conspiracy theory fan, and maybe this bombing in Boston was just a case of two angry young brothers who flipped out, egged each other on, and decided to go out with a bang. But it would be naive and irresponsible not to make note of these bizarre links, through their Uncle Ruslan Tsarni, of the Tsarnaev brothers to the CIA, and of the apparent presence of the Craft International personnel at the marathon finish line, not to mention the uncanny similarity in attire between Tamerlan Tsarnaev and the Craft mercenaries at the marathon bombing scene. (Besides, my late father, a retired electrical engineer and a Jungian analyst, used to say that many seeming coincidences are actually synchronicities, and can have much more meaning than simply being a highly improbable accident.) Also begging an answer is the question of where the two brothers, neither of whom had obvious access to wealth, got the money to spend on fancy clothes or, in the case of Tamerlan (who with his wife and small daughter, on the basis of his publicly available information, qualified until this year for welfare assistance), owned a late model Mercedes-Benz sedan."

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NY Attorney General: Banks have no fear of law enforcement

Eric W. Dolan | Raw Story
6 May 2013

New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman on Monday suggested that big banks were not afraid of skirting the law because they didn’t believe law enforcement would target them.
But he plans to change that.

Schneiderman announced a lawsuit against Wells Fargo and Bank of America earlier in the day. He alleged the two major banks repeatedly violated the terms of a mortgage settlement reached by the Department of Justice, Department of Housing and Urban Development and 49 state attorneys general last year.

“The problem is the banks have overwhelming confidence that law enforcement is not taking this seriously,” he told MSNBC host Chris Hayes. “They have overwhelming confidence that whatever the rules are, they won’t be followed up on.”

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ALEC – The American Legislative Exchange Council – explained in five minutes

Guantanamo: Either they are guilty, or they aren't.

Heywood J. | Hammer Of The Blogs
1 May 2013

You can make fun of Dubya's ridonkulous Liberry and its self-serving exhibits, but what's Obama's library going to look like at the rate he's going, a cartoon of Barry O getting pushed around by Mitch McConnell and Jamie Dimon for eight goddamned years?

I know his acolytes console themselves that his feckless 11th-dimensional chess mastery is somehow infinity better than whatever shit sandwich Romney and Ryan were cooking up. But only as a mild, eroding bulwark against the eternal predations of the oligarchy, not that Obama has done thing one about them or even slowed them down. In the meantime, every bloody thing you despised about the Bushies -- imprisonment without trial, drone war without end, the ongoing and deliberate ruination of the financial system, the rich getting richer and the poor no longer even getting by -- continue unabated.

There's not much more time for Obama to decide and act on whether he wants to end on eight years of excuses and ineffectual moderation, or to take a risk and do something, anything, pick a direction and grab a shovel. I have zero faith that he'll do the right thing, and it no longer matters whether he wants to but can't, or if he simply was never the transformative figure he was pretending to be. Just another politician, forever chasing the next election and too timid to do anything that might actually impact someone from the non-donor class.

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Principal fires security guards to hire art teachers — and transforms elementary school

Orchard Gardens, a school in Roxbury, Mass., had been plagued by bad test scores and violence – but one principal's idea to fire the security guards and hire art teachers is helping turn it around.

By Katy Tur, Correspondent, NBC News
ROXBURY, Mass. — The community of Roxbury had high hopes for its newest public school back in 2003. There were art studios, a dance room, even a theater equipped with cushy seating. A pilot school for grades K-8, Orchard Gardens was built on grand expectations.

But the dream of a school founded in the arts, a school that would give back to the community as it bettered its children, never materialized. Instead, the dance studio was used for storage and the orchestra's instruments were locked up and barely touched.

The school was plagued by violence and disorder from the start, and by 2010 it was rank in the bottom five of all public schools in the state of Massachusetts. That was when Andrew Bott — the sixth principal in seven years — showed up, and everything started to change.

“We got rid of the security guards,” said Bott, who reinvested all the money used for security infrastructure into the arts.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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The incredibly racist Mountain Dew ad they don't want you to see

"Mountain Dew has set a new low for corporate racism. Their decision to lean on well-known racial stereotypes is beyond disgusting [...] Even worse is that Mountain Dew probably thinks this ad is acceptable because they got the OK from a black man". – Dr. Boyce Watkins



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The Top Ten things Black America will have to show for eight years of President Obama — none of them are good

In 2017, it will be routine for US presidents to unilaterally murder with or without announcement of cause anybody, anyplace on the planet within the reach of US drones, special operators and mercenaries.

Bruce A. Dixon | alternet.org
30 April 2013

When Barack Obama leaves the White House in January 2017, what will black America, his earliest and most consistent supporters, have to show for making his political career possible? We'll have the T-shirts and buttons and posters, the souvenirs. That will be the good news. The bad news is what else we'll have... and not.

To hear our black political class tell it, the election of the first black US president was its ultimate achievement to date, a giant step toward fulfillment of a previous generation's insurgent agenda for social transformation. Is that real? Has the career of Barack Hussein Obama really advanced any of the historic goals of the Freedom Movement? Is the question even fair?

With corporate media already speculating about next year's midterm elections, and the presidential contest of 2016, it's entirely appropriate to discuss the president's legacy. And fair is fair --- the black political class doesn't want its meager achievements compared to the agenda of those who fought for our freedom a half century ago, it probably ought to abandon its ceaseless self-promotion as the inheritors of that tradition.

It was the overwhelming black and brown vote, along with the utter, unwavering and uncritical support of African America which made President Obama's career possible. When he leaves office in January 2017, what will be the top ten things we can say black America gained or lost from his two terms in the White House?

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