Kucinich Campaign Hoping to Rolling Out Energy-Efficient Computers Cooled by Veggie Oil. Seriously.

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Some say Dennis Kucinich is a little off-kilter (enter UFO joke here), and his most recent idea does seem pretty out there. But is it really? Turns out the campaign’s multimedia director, Chad Ely, is also an inventor and is assisting the camp in rolling out veggie-oil-cooled computers to every office. The entire processing system is submerged in oil, which keeps it cool and decreases the energy used to run it. It’s also economical and dead quiet (you know, because it doesn’t have all those fans). The prototype pictured above, which has been going strong for eight months, lives in a fish tank, although Ely claims the computers going out to the offices will be surrounded by Plexiglass. I think it’s pretty wild. Apparently, other “computer modifiers” are already hip to it. This according to our tech guy.

But that’s not all. Kucinich signed an agreement yesterday with SmartPower in which he promises that if elected president, he will make the White House 100 percent energy efficient (enter veggie-oil-filled WH joke here). Mother Jones has more fun facts about the presidential campaigns’ commitment—or lack there of—to decreasing their environmental impact. Stay tuned.

Correction: Ok, so technically the Kucinich campaign is not yet rolling out these veggie-oil-filled, wonderfully efficient and quiet computers. According to the campaign, it is still waiting on funding, but as commenter Croydon Kemp reminded us, it’s more than most are doing for the planet.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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