You have what you think is a cool idea, but you aren’t sure if you can convince investors about the sales potential of, say, a tiny monitor strapped to your face, or a watch that is also a computer. Besides, who are “investors” and how do you summon…
Heart-rate monitoring chest straps won’t be with us for much longer, as wrist-worn devices are offering optical sensors that do exactly the same job. PulseOn is the latest, and having spun out of Nokia back in 2012, is now offering its first entry…
So you say a crime-fighting hero wouldn’t actually wear the same outfit as a body-building champion from the 1950s? So you’re suggesting that Barbara Gordon, aka Batgirl, would probably opt for some real armor rather than skin-hugging material with little to no protection against the elements? Batgirl #35 has your back – and a new smartphone, too. Babs Tarr is … Continue reading
BMW and Mercedes-Benz are teaming up on wireless car charging, pushing a super-efficient way of refueling EVs like the BMW i8 and the Mercedes S500 Plug-In Hybrid simply by parking over a certain spot on your driveway. The system, which the two German marques hope to get accepted as the de-facto standard for wireless car recharging, promises a cut in … Continue reading
It goes without saying that Apple products like the iPhone 5s in recent times have proven to be hot sellers in China, so much so that some in the past were willing to sell their baby for a new iPhone, while another girl purportedly offered her virginity for an iPhone 4, with a teen willing to let go of one kidney for an iPad 2. Well, the government of the day in China might have taken into consideration the billions of dollars that the country has made with Apple’s manufacturing processes being based there, but the very same Chinese government, too, has called the iPhone a “national security concern.”
The reason behind this labeling of the iPhone as a national security threat? It has been attributed to the iOS’ ability to track down a user’s location, where a China Central Television (CCTV) report claims that this could be used as a modus operandi to betray Chinese state secrets to the whole world.
Apparently, the iOS’s “Frequent Locations” feature that keeps track of the geographic coordinates of places where a particular user frequents the most, could be used to leak sensitive information and state secrets to Apple, which is a totally baseless assumption according to Apple since all data gathered by this particular feature will remain on the iPhone itself, and will require the user’s consent prior to sending such data to Apple. After all, one can also turn off Frequent Locations if it is so much of a bother.
China: iPhone A Security Threat
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Ever since I was a kid, I have been a huge prog-rock guy. For some unknown reason, I was immediately drawn to bands like Rush, Genesis, and Pink Floyd. Of course, prog had no shortage of critics who lambasted it as pretentious, overblown, bombastic, and self-important.
The once-derided genre of music seems to be making a bit of comeback as of late. Perhaps everything old is new again. And, if you’re a prog fan today, you don’t have to go too far until you’ll come across the immensely talented multi-instrumentalist Marco Minneman. He’s played with master musicians Joe Satriani, Steven Wilson, Jordan Rudess, and many others.
I recently sat down with Marco to talk about his new album EEPS, among other subjects.
You can buy the album Amazon as well.
By Rachel Cain, Editorial Intern
“It is time for Congress to act,” emphasized actress Susan Sarandon during a recent congressional briefing about violence against the homeless. “We can’t allow these people to be invisible any longer.”
On June 25, US Representatives Alcee Hastings (D-FL) and Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) co-chaired a congressional briefing in support of a proposed piece of legislation to include the homeless as a protected class under the Hate Crimes Statistics Act. Susan Sarandon, the actress and activist, David Pirtle, a survivor of violence against the homeless, and Thomas Morgan, the co-director of a documentary about homelessness, testified during the briefing.
Throughout her testimony, Sarandon stressed that sheltered members of society must recognize the humanity of homeless people in order to overcome their indifference toward that vulnerable population.
“Congress is a proxy of society,” she said. “If society is apathetic, Congress will be, too.”
Sarandon told the story of Carl Simon, a 50-year-old homeless man who was beaten, stabbed and tortured this past year. When his attackers realized he had not died they forced him into a large suitcase he used to carry his few possessions and then drowned him in a bathtub.
“Carl Simon is one of the thousands we need to remember as we fight to protect those experiencing homelessness right now,” Sarandon said.
David Pirtle, a member of the National Coalition for the Homeless’ (NCH) Speakers Bureau, described the unprovoked violence he experienced when homeless. He survived five attacks, including being beaten with baseball bats, being spray painted and being urinated on.
“Most [attacks] are done just for fun,” Pirtle said. “I don’t understand how a person can do that and laugh.”
Although fatal attacks against the homeless occurred more than three times as often than those classified as hate crimes from 1999-2012, violence against the homeless is not considered a hate crime by the federal government.
The proposed legislation, HR 1136: Violence against the Homeless Accountability Act, would amend the Hate Crime Statistics Act to make the federal government responsible for compiling data about crimes committed against homeless people. At the moment, the Hate Crime Statistics Act requires the Attorney General to collect information on crimes committed because of a victim’s race, religion, disability, sexual orientation or ethnicity.
HR 1136 is sponsored by Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) and co-sponsored by 23 other members of Congress, including one Republican, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL).
Since 2007, several efforts have been made for Congress to have crimes against the homeless included in the Hate Crimes Statistics Act. However, all these bills died in committee.
Currently seven states and three cities recognize violence against the homeless as a hate crime. Opponents contend that homelessness should not be included as a protected class in the Hate Crime Statistics Act because homelessness is not a permanent condition, unlike the other classes protected in the Act.
An official from the Anti-Defamation League said in an interview with NPR that there needs to be a better definition of homelessness and an understanding of whether it is, like the other characteristics protected under hate crime laws, an unchangeable characteristic.
“What is the definition of homeless? What is immutable about homeless? Is it an immutable characteristic? Is it exactly the same as race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, gender?” asked Michael Lieberman, the Washington counsel for the Anti-Defamation League.
“It is different.”
According to the NCH’s new report, “Vulnerable to Hate: A Survey of Hate Crimes & Violence Committed against the Homeless in 2013,” bias against the indigent drives many crimes against the homeless. Some crimes are opportunistic, a direct result of the vulnerability homeless people experience because they have no shelter for protection. The NCH only records crimes committed by housed perpetrators against homeless individuals in its report.
“A hate crime is one of the most despicable and prejudicial acts done onto another human being by a human being and surprisingly these acts affect homeless people in great proportions,” wrote Congresswoman Johnson in an email. “It is imperative that we give this issue the serious attention that it deserves by including homeless people in hate crime statistics.”
Susan Sarandon: Homeless Advocate
Oscar award-winner Susan Sarandon may be most famous for her roles in Thelma & Louise, Dead Man Walking, and, of course, the cult-classic Rocky Horror Picture Show. However, her work and commitment extend far beyond her achievements on the silver screen–she’s also a strong activist for numerous causes, including homelessness.
She recently visited DC to testify at a congressional briefing on violence against the homeless. While she was here, Street Sense had the opportunity to speak with Sarandon about her experience as a homeless advocate.
“I have always been very aware of people who are not housed,” Sarandon explained.
Growing up in New York City, she often saw homeless people living on the streets, which compelled her to begin her advocacy work for the homeless. For years, Sarandon has been involved with the National Coalition for the Homeless (she follows the NCH on Twitter). She’s also volunteered with Habitat for Humanity and has helped out at a soup kitchen for more than two decades. Somehow, she has always found ways to juggle her advocacy work while acting in Hollywood productions.
“I’m in chaos all the time,” she smiled. “If I can use my media connections to shine a light on those who are voiceless, that’s the point.”
Sarandon relies deeply upon her store of empathy to imagine the lives of the characters she plays in films. Similarly, she believes empathy is one of the reasons why she feels drawn to speak out for the homeless.
“If you can imagine yourself in that situation [of homelessness], you want to take action,” she said. “It’s an organic natural flow.”
The actress believes that one of the most important steps to ending homelessness is to help people who are housed understand and identify with the homeless population.
“Kids don’t develop empathy without education,” she said. “There’s a misconception that people on the street want the easy life, that they don’t want to work.”
She hopes that a new documentary film, Storied Streets, directed by her son Jack Henry Robbins and produced by Thomas Morgan, will enable the public to understand the complexities of homelessness and the challenges homeless people face every day–she says it certainly made her more aware of the realities of homelessness.
“They go across the US and debunk myths of how people become homeless,” Sarandon explained. “It makes the face of the unhoused specific and human. There are so many ways to end up on the street even if you’re working two jobs–people are on the precipice constantly. I hope the film redefines for people what homelessness is.”
Homelessness is for thousands a reality Sarandon says she almost “can’t bear the thought of.”
“Home means so much to me,” she expressed. “I can’t imagine not having a place to be clean, to be safe.”
Top Image credit: Elisha Speller
Photos via ScreenSense.org
The fishing industry is an important part of the U.S. economy. In 2012, commercial fishermen landed almost 10 billion pounds of fish worth more than $5 billion. What would you say though, if you found out that some U.S. fishermen were throwing nearly half of their catch back overboard, because they were only allowed to keep certain species? And what if you heard that other fishermen were unintentionally catching large numbers of vulnerable marine animals like dolphins, whales, and sea turtles — damaging gear and hurting their own bottom lines?
Waste on this scale occurs every day in many U.S. fisheries, hurting both fishermen and marine life. A new report by Oceana recently revealed the economic losses from this wasted catch — an amount that could reach a staggering $1 billion annually.
Fishermen typically target a specific type of fish, but some types of fishing gear catch many other marine creatures. This unintentionally caught seafood, known as bycatch, is often thrown overboard and wasted, either because it is too small to keep, is poorer quality, or is less valuable than the targeted fish. Some U.S. fisheries actually throw away more fish than they keep, sometimes discarding their target fish if they exceed their quota, or even discarding another fishermen’s target fish. Researchers estimate that an average of 20 percent of what is caught in the U.S. is thrown away each year, wasting approximately 2 billion pounds of seafood, the equivalent of nearly half a billion seafood meals. Bycatch also results in the deaths of tens of thousands of sea turtles, whales, dolphins, and seals.
Oceana’s new report, “Wasted Cash,” shows that bycatch costs fishermen time, gear, and access to healthy fish stocks, which adds up to a significant amount of lost money and jobs. The report examined economic losses in three main regions: the South Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico, New England and the Mid-Atlantic, and Alaska and the Pacific Coast. Fisheries in the southeast region discard popular seafood like shrimp, grouper, snapper, tuna, and swordfish. Fisheries in Alaska and the Pacific are discarding other dinner favorites, like halibut and crabs, while fisheries in New England and the Mid-Atlantic region waste sea scallops and flounder, including $25 million worth of fish discarded in the region’s bottom trawl fisheries.
Discarding fish is akin to throwing money or perfectly good food into the ocean. Most successful businesses in the U.S. strive to cut waste and increase efficiency, and fisheries should do the same. Many fishermen have the means and knowledge to make these changes, but lack the economic incentives that would compel them to follow through.
Oceana developed a three-part solution to reduce bycatch and limit this wasted cash: “Count, Cap and Control.” First, all species caught in a fishery, including bycatch, should be counted. Accurate and precise data are essential for avoiding the negative consequences of overfishing and lost future revenue. Next, we need to set limits, or “caps.” Establishing bycatch limits is critical for maintaining healthy fish populations, and helps fishermen avoid financial losses from continued overfishing. And finally, fisheries managers should control and minimize bycatch by enforcing bycatch limits and finding incentives to change behavior, including real-time reporting, cleaner gear, time-area management, bycatch reduction devices, or other emerging economic tools.
Bycatch threatens more than just the bottom line — it puts the future resilience of ocean ecosystems at risk. With your help, Oceana is working to put our “Count, Cap and Control” solution in place to protect fishermen, fisheries and marine life.
You might call Rob Reiner a master of relationships. From eighth graders in “Flipped” to young adults in “When Harry Met Sally” and the over-60 set in his new film “And So It Goes,” the iconic director has explored what love feels like at every age. But he told HuffPost Live’s Roy Sekoff that his films “tell basically the same story over and over” for one specific reason: men really need women.
“Women, the way I see it, are very evolved people. They’re more mature, they’re more aware of their feelings, in touch with their feelings. They’re connected to things that matter more in life. They know what’s important. Men basically run around like idiots until we meet somebody who can show us that those things are important,” he said.
Reiner added that the male-female dynamic stays the same from our earliest years all the way to the end of life.
“They always say girls mature faster than boys, but I don’t think that’s true, because I think girls just are more mature than boys,” Reiner said. “We’re always trying to catch up to them.”
Catch the full HuffPost Live conversation with Rob Reiner below.
When I moved with my family from California to Utah nine years ago, I was stunned by the horrible air quality in this otherwise gorgeous mountain state. Day after day, during that first winter, we were smothered in breath-taking blanket of smog. Back then, I knew little about how air pollution impacted our health, but as a mother, I instinctively felt air this dirty could only be harmful to my two young daughters. I had the sensation I was locking my two daughters in a windowless room full of chain smokers.
Soon after, a new group called Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment held a press conference confirming that this air pollution was making our kids sick. Breathing Salt Lake City’s dirty air during a 24-hour winter inversion is virtually the same as smoking half a pack of cigarettes. Our bodies really do not know the difference.
The image of my baby with a cigarette dangling from her toothless mouth was enough to move me to action. I emailed about 100 fellow Utah moms, inviting them to a new group called Utah Moms for Clean Air, and the organization was born.
Despite our efforts to make change happen, fixing the air pollution problem is a herculean task. For example, in Salt Lake and Davis counties, which are home to five refineries, it’s common to be greeted each morning by the stench of rotten eggs, the sulfuric smell of toxins in the air. When we smell this noxious smell, we know that something has gone terribly wrong.
On other days, a storage tank might blow up and splatter the neighborhood playgrounds, gardens, lawns and rooftops with sticky, black goo.
Sometimes, we come home from work to find flames ominously lighting up the night sky from a smokestack gone rogue. And when that happens, it’s anyone’s guess when those flames will be brought back under control.
With government oversight and decades of environmental rule making, one would think such incidents would be rare, but records show that leaks, spills, fires, explosions and other pollution violations happenon average every nine days at the five refineries near my home. The tank explosion was only one of 150 toxic incidents at the HollyFrontier refinery since 2003. Altogether, since 2000, 519 environmental incidents have been linked to the five refineries near my neighborhood.
Of course, to be fair, oil refineries function according to plan much of the time too. However, even when they function as permitted, they still spew tons of hazardous pollution each year, thus increasing the cancer risk for millions of Americans.
In Utah alone, air pollution prematurely claims the lives of between 1,000 and 2,000 people every year. Oil refineries are obviously not responsible for all of Utah’s air pollution, but they pump some of the worst gunk into our air such as benzene, volatile organic compounds and other hazardous air pollutants that are linked to cancer, neurological harm and breathing problems. My own brother-in-law just passed away from lung disease — and he never smoked.
The toxic soup spewed by oil refineries is, of course, not limited to Utah. Millions of Americans across 32 states are also exposed to such hazardous pollutants. Approximately 150 refineries pump over 20,000 tons of poison into our air every year. And they do most of this legally.
In the past, the harm these pollutants imposed on people was little understood and thus, industry and government can be forgiven for not duly protecting the public. But now, the risks are understood enough to ask the question: Is it not morally wrong to knowingly impose harm on innocent others, especially in the name of profit?
Let us be perfectly clear here. Oil refineries can do more — a lot more — to mitigate the harm they impose on the public. Better pollution control technology is available. But they choose not to use it. Why? Because it is in their financial self-interest to externalize as many of their costs of doing business onto the local communities and ecosystems as they can, and for as long as they are legally allowed to do so. Doing so allows them to avoid paying the true costs of doing their business and thus increase their bottom line — but at the expense of others.
Finally, after years of communities demanding stronger regulation and a lawsuit that charged the federal government with violating the Clean Air Act for not updating air pollution standards, the EPA proposed a new rule in May that would significantly reduce hazardous air pollution.
The rule could be stronger but it does require fence-line monitoring for the first time, so the public and regulatory agencies can know what is being emitted from refineries at the edge of refineries’ property where pollution goes directly into communities. And it tightens up emissions standards in a number of other important ways. It would result in a reduction of 5,600 tons of hazardous air pollution, annually, lowering the cancer risk from this pollution.
The American Petroleum Institute, the main organization that lobbies for the gas and oil industry, has balked at the costs of the proposed rule and questioned the environmental benefits. But an EPA analysis concluded that the increase in costs for petroleum products that would result from the proposed rule is negligible.
For me, the argument about whether we should go forward with a proposal to remove tons of hazardous air and carcinogens from the air is a no-brainer. From the position of mother, citizen and consumer, I believe we must do all we can to save lives, as it is the morally right thing to do.
This refineries’ rule can still be weakened through pressure from the oil lobby and when it is reviewed by the Office of Management and Budget, so we need the public to reach out to the EPA during the current 60-day public comment period and demand that we have stronger environmental protection by the time the rule is finalized next April. Breathing clean air is a birthright — and now is the time to demand that right.
This blog post is part of a series produced by The Huffington Post and Earthjustice on air pollution from oil refineries. The series coincides with the beginning of the 60-day comment period following the EPA’s new proposed legislation to curb such pollution, which is opposed by oil refineries. For more information about the right to breathe campaign, click here.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
