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Bluegrass Uprising

Madeline Ostrander The Nation
As American energy production booms, thousands face pipelines in their backyards. Pipelines carry flammable, toxic materials next to homes, and many experts say they’re poorly monitored by the government. Just 110 federal inspectors supervise the nation’s 2.5 million miles of existing pipelines. Oversight for new pipelines carrying oil and NGL—both classed as “hazardous liquids”—is even laxer, say critics.

Brainlike Computers, Learning From Experience

John Markoff The New York Times
These computers are not programmed instead, connections between the circuits are “weighted” according to correlations in data that the processor has already “learned.” Those weights are then altered as data flows in to the chip, causing them to change their values. That generates a signal that travels to other components and, in reaction, changes the neural network, programming the next actions much the same way that information alters human thoughts and actions.

Teachers Group Revealed as Funder Behind Pro Walsh PAC

Wesley Lowery The Boston Globe
The American Federation of Teachers was the donor behind One Boston, a PAC that paid for a $480,000 television commercial supporting Mayor-elect Martin J. Walsh during the final days of the Boston mayoral race.

The Right To Stay Home: How U.S. Policy Drives Mexican Migration - a Review

Duane Campbell Talking Union, a DSA labor blog
The Obama Administration has produced vast expansion of deportations reaching 409,000 last year, with over 2 million deported since this president assumed office. Increased enforcement has been justified as a device to encourage legislative reform of the immigration system, but it has only increased the deportations and the divisions of families.

The Fear Economy

Economist Paul Krugman The New York Times
There are many steps that we can take to end that state of affairs, but the most important is to put jobs back on the agenda.

IAM Disrtict 751 Urges Rejection of Boeing Offer

IAM District 751
If you have not already heard, we want to let you know that the International is forcing a vote on Boeing’s latest proposal on January 3, 2014. Due to the massive takeaways, your District 751 leadership is united with a recommendation that you reject this proposal. You need to look at the facts of the economic destruction you would have to live under for the next 11 years, without any opportunity to change any provisions of the contract.