On Friday, Feb 14, 92 prisoners escaped from their prison in the Libyan town of Zliten. 19 of them were eventually recaptured, two of whom were wounded in clashes with the guards. It was just another daily episode highlighting the utter chaos which has engulfed Libya since the overthrow of Muammar Ghaddafi in 2011.

Much of this is often reported with cliché explanations as in the country’s ‘security vacuum’, or Libya’s lack of a true national identity. Indeed, tribe and region seem to supersede any other affiliation, but it is hardly that simple.

On that same Friday, Feb 14, Maj. Gen. Khalifa Hifter announced a coup in Libya. “The national command of the Libyan Army is declaring a movement for a new road map” (to rescue the country), Hifter declared through a video post. Oddly enough, little followed by way of a major military deployment in any part of the country. The country’s Prime Minister Ali Zeidan described the attempted coup as “ridiculous”.

Ohio Soil Recycling, LLC (OSR), a Columbus, Ohio based business that uses microbes, algae, and bacteria to remediate contaminated soil, will NOT be receiving shale gas solid waste as previously reported. Drill cuttings will instead be sent to Ohio landfills

As reported in The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio Soil Recycling was authorized by the Ohio EPA to receive solid waste drill cuttings at the Alum Creek Integrity Drive facility. This was to be an alternate method of disposing of shale gas development waste (fracking). Shale gas drill cuttings would be processed, to rid them of drilling lubricants and used to cap the old Franklin County landfill along Alum Creek.

Radioactive Waste Alert, a Columbus area citizen action group, has concerns about the health risks associated with the processing and re-use of this soil. The OSR facility is located along the banks of Alum Creek, one of the Columbus area water supplies. Shale rock contains radioactive metals, including Radium 228, and 226. Carolyn Harding, organizer of RadioactiveWasteAlert.org warns, "These radioactive elements are water soluble and could contaminate our water supply."

I've been asked to debate Danny Postel on the question of Syria, and so have read the op-ed he co-authored with Nader Hashemi, "Use Force to Save Starving Syrians." Excellent responses have been published by Coleen Rowley and Rob Prince and probably others. And my basic thinking on Syria has not changed fundamentally since I wrote down my top 10 reasons not to attack Syria and lots and lots of other writing on Syria over the years. But replying to Postel's op-ed might be helpful to people who've read it and found it convincing or at least disturbing. It might also allow Postel to most efficiently find out where I'm coming from prior to our debate.

The FBI may have you on a terrorist list. Have you been to see “Gasland” or attended a zoning meeting on fracking?

The Columbus Free Press obtained a July 23, 2013 FBI's Philadelphia Joint Terrorism Task Force report on “Environmental Extremists.” The FBI and the Pennsylvania State Patrol coauthored the report that lumps virtually all activists engaged in protests against fracking for natural gas together as potential violent terrorists. The report includes photos of protests and protestors in Ohio along with photos of low grade black powder pipe bombs found unarmed and undetonated near natural gas drilling operations in rural Pennsylvania.

Madeline ffitch, of Millfield, Ohio, was arrested for blockading an entrance way to a fracking wastewater injection well site on June 26, 2012. She was arrested while locked to two 50-gallon cement filled drums, effectively shutting down the well site. Despite engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience ffitch’s photo is displayed in the FBI report.

Convicted felon Tom Noe, former Lucas County (Toledo) Republican Party chairman, stole $13.7 million in the so-called “Coingate” scandal during the Voinovich and Taft administrations. Major daily newspapers in Ohio like the Toledo Blade and the Columbus Dispatch are finally getting around to pondering: Why has there been no investigation and final report from the Ohio Inspector General’s office on this important scandal?

A Blade editorial asks the key question: “What is the state trying to cover up?”

Let us explain it to them.

Why there’s no report on the Coingate scandal is because it intersects with money –laundering into a presidential campaign and Voinovich’s ties to organized crime.

Tom Noe was northwest Ohio's “Mr. Republican” and a close Bush/Rove crony. He served two years for illegal money laundering into the 2004 Bush/Cheney campaign. He is now serving an 18-year term in state prison for stealing from the state’s Bureau of Workers’ Compensation (BWC).