Solartopia! An achievable vision of a sustainable future

Harvey Wasserman is an activist sage, a social change visionary and prolific author. A journalist and historian, he has for over three decades fought for a renewable green future and an America that lives up to its professed ideals. His new book SOLARTOPIA! Our Green Powered Earth, A.D. 2030 is a report from the future, from a world that has successfully made the transition from the age of coal, oil, and nuclear energy to a fully sustainable civilization built on renewable energy.

What is most striking about Wasserman's vision, as Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. notes in his foreword to SOLARTOPIA! is that all of the technology needed to midwife this transition already exists. All that is needed is the will to make the change.

Dead dogs don't bleed

In the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, Mayor Giuliani seemed as sure a bet as you could hope for as the Republican candidate destined to seek the White House in 2008. He rallied his city amid the rubble of the Twin Towers. His, not Bush's, was the firm voice of resolve.

            Since that apex in popular esteem, Giuliani's course has been unsteady. His business enterprises and associates have come under unsparing scrutiny, prime among them his former New York City police chief, Bernie Kerik, a former prison warder plucked from obscurity by Giuliani. Last week, prosecutors informed Kerik he will be indicted for serious offenses including tax evasion and misleading federal investigators (Martha Stewart's ticket to conviction).

            Though political professionals licked their lips at the political minefield facing Giuliani courtesy of the misfortunes of his former business partner, the American people did not seem unduly troubled, any more than they have been by political Washington's other prime obsession, the firings by U.S. Attorney General Albert Gonzales of some federal prosecutors.

USDA and agribusiness conspire to mislead consumers

"Raw" Almonds Must Soon be Steam-Heated or Treated with Toxic Chemical

CORNUCOPIA, WI: Small-scale farmers, retailers, and consumers are outraged over a new federal regulation that will require all almonds grown in California to be sterilized with various “pasteurization” techniques. The rule, which the USDA quietly developed in response to outbreaks of Salmonella in 2001 and 2004, traced to raw almonds, mandates that all almonds undergo a sterilization process that includes chemical and/or high-temperature treatments. Although the final rule was just published in the Federal Register, The Cornucopia Institute, a Wisconsin-based farm policy research group, is asking the USDA to reopen the proceeding for public comment. Cornucopia contends that the rule was never effectively announced to the public, and that the reasoning behind both the necessity and safety of the sterilization processes should be questioned before the rule goes into effect this September.

Auditing the mid-term election

In the 2006 general election, according to unofficial results posted on the website of Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, there were 4,177,498 ballots cast in the State of Ohio. Of these, only 3,831,716, or 91.72%, contained a vote for Governor, and only 3,826,829, or 91.61%, contained a vote for United States Senate. These numbers created the appearance of undervote (or overvote) rates of 8.28% and 8.39%, respectively, in the two most hotly contested statewide races on the ballot. When the unofficial election results are examined county by county, there was a strikingly abnormal distribution of undervotes. I chose the United States Senate race to examine in detail because there were only two candidates on the ballot (and one write-in candidate), which makes the mathematical analysis simpler than for the Governor's race, in which there were four candidates on the ballot (and two write-in candidates).

Read the full article as a PDF

Join Feingold and Reid in the fight against Bush's veto of a timeline for bringing the troops home

On Tuesday, in anticipation of the Bush veto, Senator Russ Feingold will formally propose legislation that will effectively end the current military mission in Iraq and begin the redeployment of U.S. forces. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is joining Feingold in this call.

We need as many Senators as possible to go on the record in support of this bill before Tuesday so it can be introduced with overwhelming support that reflects the will of the people.

The Feingold/Reid bill requires the President to begin safely redeploying U.S. troops from Iraq 120 days from enactment, as required by the emergency supplemental spending bill the Senate recently passed. The bill ends funding for the war, with three narrow exceptions, effective March 31, 2008.

Tell your Senators: Join Feingold and Reid in the fight against Bush's veto of a timeline for bringing the troops home
ACT FOR CHANGE

Will Easton, Manager, ActForChange.com

Beet farmers

http://mattbors.com

A way forward

It’s been a big week for the atmosphere. Monday, the Supreme Court ruled five to four (Hang on, Justice Stevens!) that the Clean Air Act does allow the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant. Just because the EPA can regulate CO2 doesn’t mean it will, at least not under the current administration, but we can all hope 2009 is not too late to pull the planet back from the brink of destruction.

In another Monday ruling – this one unanimous – the court ruled that existing power plants that have been rehabbed or expanded must meet the same (stricter) standards as new power plants. Just to clear up any confusion, this case has been kicking around since 1998, when the Clinton administration tried to hold utilities to the higher standard. It’s unlikely the case would have been generated under the current boss.

Jesus Wouldn't Bomb Anyone: Why are we waging war on the poor and oppressed?

"I will not tire of declaring that if we really want an effective end to violence we must remove the violence that lies at the root of all violence: structural violence, social injustice, exclusion of citizens from the management of the country, repression. All this is what constitutes the primal cause, from which the rest flows naturally."
---Archbishop Oscar Romero (1917-1980)

Contrary to the perpetual barrage of bovine fecal matter spewed forth by our beloved corporate media whores, terrorism is not an imminent threat to the continued existence of moral, peaceful human beings. Certainly there are groups and individuals who kill innocents in pursuit of demented agendas. However, by and large, those labeled “terrorists” by the Bush administration and their unofficial mouth-pieces at Fox News and similar outlets are people who are simply using "asymmetrical warfare" to resist the ongoing oppression, exploitation and subjugation of an imperialist aggressor.

Two big victories boost Ohio's election protection movement

In a victory for election protection activists, Ohio's powerful GOP Chair Bob Bennett will be forced to face a public hearing on his removal as Chair of the Cuyahoga (Cleveland) Board of Elections. And in a second triumph, Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner has agreed, as part of a legal settlement, to take possession of the ballots and other key documents from the disputed 2004 election that gave George W. Bush a second term in the White House.

Brunner has requested the resignations of the entire scandal-plagued Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, which Bennett has chaired. Two Democratic members and one Republican have complied with her request. The BOE's executive director, Michael Vu, previously resigned amidst a cloud of scandal resulting from a mishandled primary election and more than $12 million in budgetary overruns. Two BOE workers have been given 18-month prison sentences for felony convictions stemming from what a government prosecutor called the "rigging" of an officially mandated recount for the 2004 presidential election.

Bombing mystery

BANGKOK, Thailand -- This Buddhist-majority nation is gripped with suspense over an unsolved, bloody New Year's Eve terrorist attack in Bangkok.

Who planted nine bombs in the capital's streets during public count-down celebrations, killing three people and injuring 30 others in neon-lit darkness?

Consider the clues and characters:

Immediately after synchronized bombs exploded in scattered urban areas during New Year's Eve, Thailand's unelected military regime insisted Islamist insurgents were not involved.

Synchronized bomb attacks in urban areas, however, have been an impressively successful tactic for ethnic Malay-Thai rebels fighting for independence in the south.

Police however pointed at two men, filmed by closed-circuit security cameras, wandering Bangkok's Seacon Square shopping mall while lugging a shopping bag, alongside other customers near one New Year's Eve bomb site.

Grainy, poorly focused video did not reveal much about the suspects.

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