We are saddened to learn that Victoria Parks left us on Friday, May 10, 2024. We will miss her provocative satirical political songs and her participation at Comfest and other events. Well-known in the city as a songwriter and folksinger, many people don’t know she was also a talented artist, poet, writer, holistic medicine practitioner, community activist, election integrity advocate, and one of the founders of the local WGRN radio station.  

I offer these thoughts because I'm told by many that people, especially young folks, have little to no memory or knowledge of these essential learnings from Chernobyl and Fukushima.  Understanding these hard lessons allows us to see through the demonic joke of ‘clean and green' nuclear power supposedly saving us from climate change.  

April 26, 2024, was the 38th anniversary of Chernobyl, which is still considered by some to be the worst nuclear accident in history. That disaster exposed millions of people all over the planet to harmful ionizing radiation and its long-lasting humanitarian effects and severe social and political impacts contributed heavily to the collapse of the Soviet empire.    

The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant is about 81 miles north of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, and about 12 miles south of the border with Belarus.  The disaster site, still intensely radioactive, is now in the Ukrainian war zone, compounding the risks.    

BANGKOK, Thailand -- China's imported electric vehicles (EVs) are heavily denting U.S. and Japanese car sales in Thailand, so Chinese manufacturers are investing more than a billion dollars to assemble their EVs near Bangkok to expand domestic sales and international exports.

Thailand prides itself as "The Detroit of Asia".

Toyota, Isuzu, Mitsubishi, Honda, Ford and other manufacturers dominate a swelling domestic market for traditional internal combustion cars fueled by gasoline, diesel, or LPG.

Thailand is Southeast Asia's biggest exporter of those vehicles, rolling out 2.5 million annually.

Those numbers are expected to grow after China recently began exporting its EVs into Thailand's domestic market, while constructing facilities in Thailand to assemble Chinese EVs for additional sales here and abroad.

If the U.S., Europe and elsewhere enforce strict quotas limiting imports of "Made in China" vehicles, future Chinese cars "Made in Thailand" could challenge that.