Every once in a while, I want to write a note, roll it up, and jam it into a old milk bottle. The scribbling part is easy. The tough part comes when trying to decide where to deliver it. There are not many outlets around willing to accept delivery on such a thing, and even fewer staff people able or interested enough to pay much attention to such a note, especially for one beginning this way:
"I see by the clock on the clubhouse wall, and by the full-faced frown on the burly, white-uniformed orderly I can't seem to shake, that it's time for a nice, hot cup of Thorazine and some phosphene therapy, staring off into space, my eyes shut tight..."
Alex Baer: Wake Me When We're Star Trek
D.C. Council Votes to Decriminalize Small Amounts of Marijuana
The D.C. Council voted Tuesday in favor of a bill to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana for personal use.
Mayor Gray is expected to sign the bill into law. Then it will have to wait for the standard congressional review period before going into effect. Congress has rarely used its veto powers over D.C. laws.
The vote was little more than a formality. The council had already approved decriminalization by an 11-to-1 vote. But before that initial vote, the council watered down the bill by maintaining criminal penalties for smoking pot in public.
Study Finds Keystone XL Would Have Much Larger Impact Than State Department Suggests
The State Department's final environmental impact analysis for the proposed Keystone XL pipeline downplays the significance the pipeline would have for development of the Canadian tar sands, according to a new analysis from a United Kingdom-based group. The analysis also argues that the State Department underestimated the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that would come with that development.
The Carbon Tracker Initiative, a nonprofit that focuses on how carbon budgets interact with financial markets, released the new report on Monday, making its case for why Keystone XL is more important in the context of global emissions than the State Department's study indicates.
New magnetic material could boost electronics
A highly sensitive magnetic material that could transform computer hard drives and energy storage devices has been discovered. The metal bilayer needs only a small shift in temperature to dramatically alter its magnetism - a tremendously useful property in electronic engineering.
"No other material known to man can do this. It's a huge effect. And we can engineer it," said Ivan Schuller, of the University of California, San Diego.
He presented his findings at the American Physical Society meeting in Denver.
U.S. judge rules for Chevron in Ecuador environmental case
An American lawyer used "corrupt means" to secure a multi-billion-dollar pollution judgment against Chevron Corp in Ecuador, a U.S. judge ruled on Tuesday, handing the oil company a major victory following a six-week trial last year.
In a nearly 500-page decision, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in New York said he had found "clear and convincing evidence" that attorney Steven Donziger's legal team bribed an Ecuadorean judge to issue an $18 billion judgment in 2011 in favor of a group of villagers. They had claimed Texaco, later acquired by Chevron, contaminated an oil field in northeastern Ecuador between 1964 and 1992.
Nearly 1 in 5 had mental illness before enlisting in Army, study says
Nearly 1 in 5 U.S. soldiers had a common mental illness, such as depression, panic disorder or ADHD, before enlisting in the Army, according to a new study that raises questions about the military's assessment and screening of recruits.
More than 8 percent of soldiers had thought about killing themselves and 1.1 percent had a past suicide attempt, researchers found from confidential surveys and interviews with 5,428 soldiers at Army installations across the country.
Thrown in jail for being poor: the booming for-profit probation industry
Many poor Americans face jail when they can’t pay steep fines for nonviolent crimes, like $1,000 for stealing a $2 beer
Thomas Barrett of Georgia sold his own blood plasma twice a week to raise money for the probation fees he owed a for-profit firm.
In January 2013, Clifford Hayes, a homeless man suffering from lupus and looking for a night off the streets, walked into the sheriff’s office in Augusta, Georgia. It was a standard visit: he needed police clearance, a requirement of many homeless shelters, to stay overnight at the Salvation Army.
Powerful storm lashes eastern U.S. with snow, arctic cold
A powerful winter storm hit the U.S. East Coast on Monday with freezing rain, snow and arctic cold, forcing cancellation of about 2,250 flights, shutting down Washington and closing schools and local governments.
The latest of a series of weather systems to pummel the winter-weary eastern United States, the storm was expected to blanket the U.S. capital with up to 9 inches of snow as it swept from the Mississippi Valley to the Carolinas and Mid-Atlantic states, the National Weather Service said.
Your favorite store may be tracking you while you shop
Signals emitted by your smartphone leave a digital trail that retailers can follow to find out how long you lingered in front of a sales rack or languished in a checkout line.
A growing number of mobile analytics companies use the Bluetooth and Wi-Fi beacons broadcast by smartphones to help retailers monitor customers’ movements in shopping centers, casinos, restaurants, hotels and airports.
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