Global
As Vermont seethes with radioactive contamination and the Democratic Party crumbles, Barack Obama has plunged into the atomic abyss.
In the face of fierce green opposition and withering scorn from both liberal and conservative budget hawks, Obama has done what George W. Bush could not---pledge billions of taxpayer dollars for a relapse of the 20th Century’s most expensive technological failure.
Obama has announced some $8.3 billion in loan guarantees for two new reactors planned for Georgia. Their Westinghouse AP-1000 designs have been rejected by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as being unable to withstand natural cataclysms like hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes.
The Vogtle site was to originally host four reactors at a total cost of $600 million; it wound up with two at $9 billion.
In the face of fierce green opposition and withering scorn from both liberal and conservative budget hawks, Obama has done what George W. Bush could not---pledge billions of taxpayer dollars for a relapse of the 20th Century’s most expensive technological failure.
Obama has announced some $8.3 billion in loan guarantees for two new reactors planned for Georgia. Their Westinghouse AP-1000 designs have been rejected by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as being unable to withstand natural cataclysms like hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes.
The Vogtle site was to originally host four reactors at a total cost of $600 million; it wound up with two at $9 billion.
"This fight is for every American worker,” said Jim McClellan, President, Machinist’s District 54, addressing a rally this past week of machinists and their supporters at Center City International Trucking (CCIT) on Columbus’ west side. “These workers are fighting to preserve the pensions that they worked their entire lives for. If predatory bankers can come in here and steal the pensions these workers’ earned, then nobody in our nation is safe!” Send Comments
That was a theme that was repeated over and over by the machinists manning the informational picket at the IAM rally for justice.
“We’ve canceled our vacation and just stopped buying anything that isn’t a major necessity,” stated Bob, who’d also worked at CCIT for more than two decades. “I’d planned on taking my pension. It’s getting harder and harder to work in these cold temperatures and we wanted to travel. These days it’s all about greed and money. These bankers don’t care about anyone but themselves!”
That was a theme that was repeated over and over by the machinists manning the informational picket at the IAM rally for justice.
“We’ve canceled our vacation and just stopped buying anything that isn’t a major necessity,” stated Bob, who’d also worked at CCIT for more than two decades. “I’d planned on taking my pension. It’s getting harder and harder to work in these cold temperatures and we wanted to travel. These days it’s all about greed and money. These bankers don’t care about anyone but themselves!”
More Than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City
by William Julius Wilson
It has been decades since it was fashionable to talk about the poor in the United States, especially if they are black. The last political candidate who was a champion of the disadvantaged was the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy. He truly identified with them, and during his run for the presidency in 1968, he was often heard exhorting America about their plight: “We can do better.”
by William Julius Wilson
It has been decades since it was fashionable to talk about the poor in the United States, especially if they are black. The last political candidate who was a champion of the disadvantaged was the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy. He truly identified with them, and during his run for the presidency in 1968, he was often heard exhorting America about their plight: “We can do better.”
When the U.S. military began a major offensive in southern Afghanistan over the weekend, the killing of children and other civilians was predictable. Lofty rhetoric aside, such deaths come with the territory of war and occupation.
A month ago, President Obama pledged $100 million in U.S. government aid to earthquake-devastated Haiti. Compare that to the $100 billion price tag to keep 100,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan for a year.
While commanders in Afghanistan were launching what the New York Times called “the largest offensive military operation since the American-led coalition invaded the country in 2001,” the situation in Haiti was clearly dire.
With more than a million Haitians still homeless, vast numbers -- the latest estimates are around 75 percent -- don’t have tents or tarps. The rainy season is fast approaching, with serious dangers of typhoid and dysentery.
No shortage of bombs in Afghanistan; a lethal shortage of tents in Haiti. Such priorities -- actual, not rhetorical -- are routine.
A month ago, President Obama pledged $100 million in U.S. government aid to earthquake-devastated Haiti. Compare that to the $100 billion price tag to keep 100,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan for a year.
While commanders in Afghanistan were launching what the New York Times called “the largest offensive military operation since the American-led coalition invaded the country in 2001,” the situation in Haiti was clearly dire.
With more than a million Haitians still homeless, vast numbers -- the latest estimates are around 75 percent -- don’t have tents or tarps. The rainy season is fast approaching, with serious dangers of typhoid and dysentery.
No shortage of bombs in Afghanistan; a lethal shortage of tents in Haiti. Such priorities -- actual, not rhetorical -- are routine.
"God made the idiot for practice, and then He made the school board."
--Mark Twain
The New York Times Sunday Magazine has highlighted yet another mob of extremists using the Texas School Board to baptize our children's textbooks.
This endless, ever-angry escalating assault on our Constitution by crusading theocrats could be obliterated with the effective incantation of two names: Benjamin Franklin, and Deganawidah.
But first, let's do some history:
--Mark Twain
The New York Times Sunday Magazine has highlighted yet another mob of extremists using the Texas School Board to baptize our children's textbooks.
This endless, ever-angry escalating assault on our Constitution by crusading theocrats could be obliterated with the effective incantation of two names: Benjamin Franklin, and Deganawidah.
But first, let's do some history:
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1) Actual Founder-Presidents #2 through #6---John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe and John Quincy Adams---were all freethinking
Deists and Unitarians; what Christian precepts they embraced were moderate, tolerant and open-minded.
During the Bush administration, Monsanto illegally won USDA approval for its genetically engineer(GE) alfalfa by convincing regulators to bypass a mandatory environmental review. In response to a lawsuit by consumer groups, the courts then stepped in and banned GE alfalfa until the USDA followed the law.
In December, the USDA released its belated review of Monsanto's GE alfalfa seed and determined that Monsanto's alfalfa met the Obama Administration's standards, despite the risk of organic contamination.
This conclusion came despite the acknowledgment by USDA researchers that GE alfalfa is virtually certain to "contaminate" normal seeds. Cross-contamination is the number one concern with genetically engineered crops.
Organic contamination is devastating for organic farmers, especially organic dairy farmers, most of whom use organic alfalfa for feed. The presence of even the smallest amount of GE material can cause a farm to lose its organic certification. And court documents indicate that early plantings of GE alfalfa did contaminate conventional alfalfa. Yet the USDA maintains that Monsanto's existing safety protocols are good enough.
This conclusion came despite the acknowledgment by USDA researchers that GE alfalfa is virtually certain to "contaminate" normal seeds. Cross-contamination is the number one concern with genetically engineered crops.
Organic contamination is devastating for organic farmers, especially organic dairy farmers, most of whom use organic alfalfa for feed. The presence of even the smallest amount of GE material can cause a farm to lose its organic certification. And court documents indicate that early plantings of GE alfalfa did contaminate conventional alfalfa. Yet the USDA maintains that Monsanto's existing safety protocols are good enough.
Last summer, a man spinning the wheels of a pick-up truck , shouting f--- you ! and shaking a one finger salute as a blue cloud of burned rubber hovered near Goldman Environmental Prize winner Judy Bonds and other protesters against mountain top removal mining showed a sad but not surprising irony : working-class people in this Appalachian community are in conflict with each other, while those at a safe distance from this drama have been getting rich by damaging other people's air, land, and water.
Bonds and other activists know this, but their efforts to find common ground with the miners has become very difficult as this controversy has led to tensions in this generally poor rural community. Even though Bonds has been threatened with violence on many occasions, she recognizes the workers engaged in strip mining are also being exploited.
Like a decayed flotilla of rickety steamers, at least 27 of America's 104 aging atomic reactors are known to be leaking radioactive tritium, which is linked to cancer if inhaled or ingested through the throat or skin.
The fallout has been fiercest at Vermont Yankee, where a flood of cover-ups has infuriated and terrified near neighbors who say the reactor was never meant to operate more than 30 years, and must now shut.
In 2007 one of Yankee's 22 cooling towers simply collapsed due to rot.
Now the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has confirmed tritium levels in a monitoring well at Vernon to be 3.5 times the federal safety standard. The leaks apparently came from underground pipes whose very existence was recently denied by VY officials in under-oath testimony at a public hearing. Vermont's pro-nuclear Republican Governor Jim Douglas has termed the event "a breach of trust that cannot be tolerated."
The fallout has been fiercest at Vermont Yankee, where a flood of cover-ups has infuriated and terrified near neighbors who say the reactor was never meant to operate more than 30 years, and must now shut.
In 2007 one of Yankee's 22 cooling towers simply collapsed due to rot.
Now the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has confirmed tritium levels in a monitoring well at Vernon to be 3.5 times the federal safety standard. The leaks apparently came from underground pipes whose very existence was recently denied by VY officials in under-oath testimony at a public hearing. Vermont's pro-nuclear Republican Governor Jim Douglas has termed the event "a breach of trust that cannot be tolerated."
I recently joined a group of activists who traveled across the state to protest Dr. Larry James' “Psychology of Terrorism Executive Workshop” at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. Col. Larry James was Chief Psychologist of the Joint Intelligence Group and a senior member of the Behavioral Science Consultation Team (BSCT), from 2003 to 2007. For most of the critical torture years of 2003 and 2004, James reported to Major General Geoffrey Miller. Miller was transferred from Guantanamo to Iraq to take over administration of the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, from which stories and pictures of U.S. torture emerged in 2004. Send Comments