Monthly Archives: February 2011

Three Cases of Cholera Confirmed by City Officials – NYTimes.com

Cholera Bacteria viewed in electron microscope. From Dartmouth University via Wikimedia Commons

By AL BAKER on The CityRoom blog at NYTimes.com:

The first known cases of cholera in New York since the outbreak of the disease in Haiti last year were confirmed on Saturday by city officials.A commercial laboratory notified health officials on Friday that three New Yorkers had developed diarrhea and dehydration, classic symptoms of the disease, after returning from a wedding on Jan. 22 and 23 in the Dominican Republic, where the government has been trying to prevent the disease from spreading from neighboring Haiti.The three who contracted cholera were adults who returned to the city within days of the wedding.None were hospitalized. Continue reading →

President Reagan's Legacy

As we consider the Centennial of President Reagan’s birth, it is important to note that while he cut taxes on some taxpayers, he raised taxes on other taxpayers. As the graph, presented by Barry Ritholtz at Business Insider, shows, the deficit shot up under President Reagan, as it did under Presidents Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush.

Gross Federal Deficit over GDB, 1900 to present

See also CNN Money Report.

Continue reading →

Plastic Bags: a not-so-disposable problem, and the aggregate of small solutions

From reuseit.com, here are some  Fast Facts on Plastic Bags:

Market Tote from GraniteGear.com

  • 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are used every year, worldwide.
  • About 1 million plastic bags are used every minute.
  • A single plastic bag can take up to 1,000 years to degrade.
  • More than 3.5 million tons of plastic bags, sacks and wraps were discarded in 2008.
  • Only 1 in 200 plastic bags in the UK are recycled (BBC).
  • The U.S. goes through 100 billion single-use plastic bags. This costs retailers about $4 billion a year.
  • Plastic bags are the second-most common type of ocean refuse, after cigarette butts (2008)
  • Plastic bags remain toxic even after they break down.
  • Every square mile of ocean has about 46,000 pieces of plastic floating in it.

We’re talking about, we suspect, two main uses: bags used in the transportation of goods – and bags used to transport “waste,” including the garbage bags themselves, discarded shopping bags – and sometimes shopping bags re-used as garbage bags.

Tara Lohan, in The Great Plastic Bag Plague,  (On Alternet, 2007), cites industry sources for the proposition that American retailers spend $4 billion/year on plastic bags – adding, of course, to the cost of goods – without reflecting their full environmental cost. Lohan cites other sources for the proposition that 12 million barrels of oil are used , annually, to produce plastic bags used in the United States. The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that average daily use of petroleum products in the United States – the world’s largest consumer – is 18,771,000 barrels/day. Assuming we’re not in a leap year – 1/365th is .0027 (rounded) of our energy consumption. Put another way, slightly over one-quarter of one percent (0.27%). And 12 million barrels would be about two-thirds of that.  Thought of another way – 18 million barrels per day – 365 days per year – 6.5 billion (6,570,000,000).  So plastic bags amount to 0.18% of our petroleum consumption.  1 component of  6,570 equal components. So what difference does it make if you accept a plastic bag, or bring your own reusable bag?

In WW II ((One of the ways in which the  Allies gradually wore down the Axis was by depriving it of – no surprise, we hope – petroleum.  Richard Overy, in Why The Allies Won, contends that Allies’ gradual degradation of Axis energy supplies made a great contribution to the eventual Allied Victory.))     , three million soldiers retook the continent (the invasion of Western Europe, sometimes referred to as Operation Overlord)  during and after D-Day. Each soldier’s contribution amounted to 0.12%  One in three million – without counting the various Resistance groups, support troops and civilians in the United Kingdom and the United States.  Total U.S. troop count: 16.5 million. The Philippines suffered over 50,000 military deaths alone. (For total WW II casualties, see Wikipedia entry of that name).

So  – the aggregate of many small, coordinated contributions is dramatic. Get a reusable shopping bag, and use it. In future posts, we hope to point out some good deals on reusable bags, and revisit the principle of aggregating small acts. For an always-brilliant take on individual action about energy, particularly heating, check out Ellen Honigstock’s  ToePrint Project.

And:

Our earlier post, International Herald Tribune: Ireland rids itself of a plastic nuisance – Ireland’s early success with a small tax on disposable bags.

Australians Take Cover as Cyclone Lashes Coast

Are there connections between burning fossil fuels and cyclones in Australia? We have burned so much coal, oil, and natural gas the last 150 years that the concentration of atmospheric Carbon Dioxide has increased by about 40% – from about 270 PPM to about 390 PPM, from about 2.5 trillion tons to 3.67 trillion tons. (Click here or here).

From Meraiah Foley’s “Australians Take Cover as Cyclone Lashes Coast,” posted on The New York Times:

SYDNEY, Australia — One of the most powerful cyclones ever to strike Australia ripped dozens houses from their foundations, uprooted trees and shredded millions of dollars worth of sugar and banana crops when it slammed into Queensland’s northeastern coast in the predawn hours on Thursday. Continue reading →

'Suspicious' package closes half of Washington Dulles Airport terminal – Wikinews, the free news source

At approximately 1600 EST (2100 UTC) a suspicious package was found near the baggage claim at Washington Dulles International Airport in Virginia, United States, leading to the closure of around half of the terminal. Police later determined that the package was harmless and reopened the affected areas of the airport. Parts of the airport had been closed for two hours before being reopened.

Officials from the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority said a canine unit was attracted to an unattended piece of baggage near the baggage claim. They did not disclose what the package contained, but an official said the package did not look similar to other suspicious packages sent to Maryland state government buildings earlier today.

Due to the package, four baggage claims and a United Airlines ticket counter were temporarily vacated. Flights continued to operate at the airport during the investigation

via ‘Suspicious’ package closes half of Washington Dulles Airport terminal – Wikinews, the free news source.

Safety issues with New York's most highly trained unit

NYPD Emergency Services Unit ESU patch

Safety issues with New York’s most highly trained unit, the Emergency Services Unit, which has the NYPD’s heavy-weapons, hostage-rescue, and counter-sniper functions, among others. Of course,  it’s also the most heavily armed, perhaps the only officers with regular access to long guns and automatic weapons.  Thus,  Gawker’s report,  Elite NYPD Unit Having Gun Safety Issues,  is particularly disturbing.

From Jeff Neumann’s piece in Gawker:

Just last week, an ESU officer shot and killed a Bronx man, Alberto Colon while they were searching for his son, an alleged drug dealer. The officer who shot him was trying to turn the flashlight on his weapon on. But that’s not the only big time screw up. According to a report in the the Daily News:

A member of the ESU sniper team safeguarding the tree-lighting center at the tourist magnet accidentally let loose a rifle round on Nov. 30. It happened about 90 minutes after the ceremony, as the sniper teams were pulling out. The round hit a building and was found a block and a half away.

Four days earlier, an ESU detective getting out of his vehicle to respond to a report of a barricaded gunman accidentally fired a shotgun in Harlem. The blast went through an apartment window on W. 136th St.

As in the Rockefeller Center incident, no one was injured.

This is – let’s be clear – not about  “bad cops.”  It’s about cops working too much overtime, and an appallingly low ratio of training time to field time. The police officers need more basic firearms handling and usage.  Less practice results in worse outcomes. It’s that simple. We appreciate Gawker’s coverage – excellent overall – but the remark about a cop being overweight is unfair. Consider the training that a U.S. infantry soldier receives – months or years – before being considered, say, for the Rangers – much less the Special Forces, SEALs or that more elite unit whose name we’re not to say aloud.

Continue reading →