The Future of Women on Earth May Be Darker Than You Thought, Annalee Newitz, io9, January 2, 2015
When I say freedom, I don’t mean anything fancy. I’m just talking about women’s ability to control their destinies, by having things like access to jobs that give them financial independence from anyone else. Just for good measure, let’s say that freedom also includes the opportunity to contribute to the political destinies of our communities by voting, holding office, and being given a chance to run important institutions. I’m not saying anything radical here. These are all pretty typical freedoms afforded to women in modern democratic countries, at least technically — and even to some women in non-democratic ones.
I used the word “technically” for a reason. As most people who have ever lived as women will tell you, many of these freedoms are difficult to achieve in practice. Women are not forbidden from having financial independence and leadership roles, but we still struggle to get them.
But that’s not really news, and if you want to debate it, there are plenty of message boards that will welcome your thoughts. What I find more interesting is that women have had these freedoms for such an incredibly short period of time. Considering that humans have been creating systems of government for thousands of years, women’s suffrage is like a blink of an eye. In the United States, where I live, women couldn’t vote a century ago.
It’s Time To Arrest Ultra-Orthodox Jews Who Delay Flights Over Seating, Michael Luciano, The Daily Banter, December 29, 2014
This country has long debated the location of the boundary dividing the freedom to exercise religion and the freedom to be unmolested by religious interference. While this demarcation is not always clear and seems to shift from time to time depending on whims of the judiciary, the cases described above are so outrageously violative of this boundary, that it’s simply reckless to keep tolerating more instances of them.
Kochs and Walmart Clan Wage Dirty War to Stop You From Putting Solar Panels on Your Home, Cliff Weathers, AlterNet, January 5, 2015
Why are conservative luminaries, corporate lobbyists, and the power companies pushing so hard against the little guy trying to save a few bucks while helping the planet? Because even though solar energy still only accounts for 0.23 percent of the nation’s electricity today, rooftop solar is a real threat to the very existence of utilities in the near future.
For utilities, the most immediate cause for concern is net metering policies in many states, which allow homeowners and businesses to sell back any excess electricity they create with their solar panels. The surplus electricity goes back into the power grid and is sold to other consumers at low rates, often lower than what the utilities charge for electricity themselves. John Eick told the Guardian that ALEC is worried about how individual homeowners are being compensated for feeding electricity back into the system. He said ALEC wants to reduce the rate homeowners are paid for direct power generation and perhaps even penalize homeowners for selling electricity back to the grid.
While power fed back to the grid from homeowners and businesses isn’t much of a threat to utilities currently, it will be in the near future as solar installations become more popular and affordable. Homegrown solar power, says the utility industry, may soon lay waste to the status quo.
