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By 2015, it will be illegal for New Yorkers to throw electronics in the trash

If you thought forcing restaurants to post calorie counts on their menus was an intrusion by the nanny state, get ready for the Mary F'in Poppins of regulations: To prepare consumers and businesses for the arrival of a 2015 law that will ban the disposal of electronics in the trash, New York state is forcing […]

The coal power industry’s willfully deceptive picture of EPA rules

Every Republican who’s come within shouting distance of a microphone in the past year has charged the EPA with out-of-control, unconstitutional job-killing malefaction — “regulatory overreach” for short. More than a few conservative Dems, led by the crudely pandering Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, have followed suit. This is their way of advocating for […]

Environmental groups to be penalized for winning lawsuits

Two GOP-sponsored bills introduced last week would impose a penalty on environmental groups that sue the government under the Equal Access to Justice Act or the Endangered Species Act. That’s typical of the GOP, right — they’re all about tort reform? Yeah, well, these bills would penalize successful suits, by making it impossible for the […]

The drugstore chains that ate America’s suburbs [VIDEO]

What is the fabric of the modern American community? Well, a big part of it consists of an endless parade of chain drugstores selling the kind of stuff chain drugstores sell (including booze!). That’s the landscape that Chris Weagel shows us from his hometown of St. Clair Shores, Mich. It is also a landscape that […]

New reality show is ‘Ice Road Truckers’ for coal miners

The Spike network is set to run a show about coal miners, in the mold of Deadliest Catch and Ice Road Truckers — gritty dudes fighting their way through the world’s hardest jobs. This has the potential to expose coal’s seamy underbelly, or to glamorize it beyond repair (at least in the minds of Spike-watching […]

Japanese utility baffled that nuclear plant leak couldn’t be plugged with shredded newspaper

Newest terrifying thing at the Fukushima Daiichi plant: A breach in a trench is leaking highly radioactive water into the surrounding ocean. Japanese utility TEPCO tried over the weekend to use concrete to plug the leak. When that failed, they went for the next most logical solution: a mixture of "132 pounds of sawdust, 18 […]

WattsUpWithThat: Psychic seals have evolved ability to predict future climate

On March 21, the ’science’ blogger Anthony Watts actually published the following headline story and lede: Canadian Harp Seals In New England (“prediction” of cooling?) Yes, Watts is suggesting that Canadian Harp Seals are psychic, or, technically, have developed precognition — although a bizarre form of precognition whereby they incorrectly predict the future based on discredited […]

Deepwater Horizon firm gives execs safety bonuses, with no apparent sense of irony

Transocean, the offshore drilling firm that ran the Deepwater Horizon rig, has given its top execs massive bonuses for having “the best year in safety performance in our company's history.” Seriously. Here’s what the annual report says: “Yeah, some people died and some animals died and some livelihoods were ruined, but that was only April […]

Breaking: George Will takes the train, may have been collectivized

Its power is spreading.Photo: travisA few weeks back, as we wrote here, Newsweek columnist George Will wrote a screed against rail travel in which he made a startling suggestion about the true motivation behind the Obama administration’s support for rail transportation: [T]he real reason for progressives’ passion for trains is their goal of diminishing Americans’ […]

The earthquake kit: How to unpack for a disaster and survive the unexpected

What’s in your earthquake survival kit? And what’s not?Photo: Global XThis essay was originally published on TomDispatch and is republished here with Tom’s kind permission. The first American responses to the triple calamity in Japan were deeply empathetic and then, as news of the Fukushima nuclear complex’s leaking radiation spread, a lot of people began […]