I understand and empathize with your feelings.
The only just way to establish wages is to let the market decide.
However, that won't work until Labor and Capital have the same market power as Land.
And to achieve that is almost impossible - the opponents are too powerful.
Harry
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Ray wrote:
Can anyone on this list explain the below without referring to the straitjacket of Ideology? There is NOTHING! NOTHING logical about any of this. You cannot explain having a laboratory of this nature in a metropolitan area of 18 million people at all. Then you cannot explain, allowing a strike in such an area either. Then you cannot explain why they would not pay people enough for dealing with such garbage or consider money an issue when you are speaking life and death and on and on and on. This is nuts. Bottom line? What would they all do if they had to confront the old Cherokee law of blood where the person's family is responsible for paying liability for criminal acts and that only a life of some member of that family can serve to pay the debt for a life that was taken through carelessness or anything else.This is your society in all of its glory. Private ownership is the root of such idiocy and the values of the community are negative in comparison. Comparitive Advantage? How about comparing the advantage of such idiocy? It is the materialization of what cannot be quantified that is the root of all of this evil. Growth cannot be quantified, health cannot be quantified, spirit cannot be quanitified, justice cannot be quantified, Art cannot be quantified in fact human life cannot be quantified except by comparing one life against another. I'm NOT sure ANY life can truly be quantified. But if it can't then where is your economic system? Ray Evans Harrell December 20, 2002 Power Fails for 3 Hours at Plum Island Infectious Disease Lab By MARC SANTORA three-hour power failure at the Plum Island Animal Disease Center last weekend renewed concerns about the safety of the high-security government laboratory while it is being run partly by replacement workers during a five-months strike. The loss of power and failure of all three backup generators raised fears for the first time that the containment of infectious pathogens could have been seriously compromised at the laboratory. The center, which is run by the United States Agriculture Department, studies highly infectious animal diseases like foot and mouth disease and African swine fever. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton called yesterday for the laboratory to cease all operations until an independent safety review could be conducted. Scientists familiar with the center said that since the diseases studied on the island do not, for the most part, affect humans, the risk to workers at the center and to residents of the nearby North Fork of Long Island was minimal. Several experts in infectious diseases said, however, that a power failure at such a facility for so long was extraordinarily unusual. Ken Alibek, a former top Soviet germ warfare official now at George Mason University, said that although he knew of power failures at similar facilities, he did not know of a case in which the power and all the backup generators failed for this long. "If there was any risk of a pathogen in the air, they need to quarantine all healthy animals," he said. "If they are sure there was no pathogen in the air, they may not need to quarantine but they need to take steps to be sure there was no contagion." Sandy Hayes, a spokeswoman for the Agriculture Department, said that the day after the power failed, safety inspectors recreated what had happened. "They said they were sure there was no bio-containment breach," she said. She said that all animals were being monitored and that none had shown any signs of problems. Ms. Hayes said that Plum Island called the Long Island Power Authority on Sunday about 1:30 p.m. reporting that the voltage it was receiving was too low. Bert Cunningham, a spokesman for the authority, said the Plum Island workers told the authority that they would turn the power off and use backup generators until the problem was resolved. Ms. Hayes said that when the generators failed to start automatically, managers at Plum Island tried to start them manually. "They would only stay on for a few minutes and then fail," she said, leaving the center without power for roughly three hours. She said the problem appeared to be mechanical and not the result of any tampering. Striking workers said the replacement workers were unfamiliar with the equipment. This week, two new backup generators were installed, Ms. Hayes said. At the time of the power failure, three workers were in the biological containment areas and they were told they could not leave until the power was restored. Ms. Hayes said the workers were not at any risk to their own health. The Plum Island center employs about 200 people, many of whom are federal government workers, including the scientists and researchers. The 76 union members who went on strike Aug. 13 are members of the International Union of Operating Engineers and are employed by L B & B Associates, a government subcontractor. Ed Brandon, the chief operating officer of L B & B, said he had no comment on the incident. The strikers include operators of the power plant and the wastewater treatment plant. Since the strike began, union members, workers on the island and government officials have expressed concern about whether the center can operate safely. The F.B.I. was called to the island in August to investigate reports of sabotage after water pressure fell too low. As a result of that investigation, Mark J. DePonte, a striking worker, pleaded guilty to tampering with government property. In October, a 600-gallon container of liquid nitrogen fell from the rear of a ferry at the center. In November, it was discovered that a replacement worker had an arrest record. The latest incident was made public when a replacement worker notified members of Senator Clinton's staff of the power failure. In an interview, the worker, who insisted on anonymity, said, "The reason I am coming forward is because what I have seen at the center is really out of hand and something needs to be done about it." Requests by The New York Times to visit the island have been rejected. The power failure is the first time the possibility of a leak of the pathogens studied on the island has been raised. Workers currently on the island, who insisted on anonymity, strikers familiar with the operation, government officials and outside scientists said the power failure could have compromised the safety of the center in several ways. People leaving the labs have to go through an elaborate cleaning process: stripping, passing back through the air lock, scrubbing their nails, spitting and blowing their noses to clear their respiratory systems, showering and shampooing their hair. All the rooms are separated by doors that are sealed with what look like bicycle inner tubes filled with air. The pressure in the seals is maintained by an air compressor, and if the power fails, those seals begin to deflate after 15 minutes. Government officials confirmed that this happened. Ms. Hayes said workers at the center sealed the doors with duct tape. In addition, the air pressure in the entire building is kept lower than the pressure outside; if there is a leak, air would enter, not escape. Under normal operation, air in the building is filtered before being vented. With the power out, the filtering would have stopped, but experts thought that the overall pressure of the facility would probably have stayed low enough to have limited the risk of a leak.
****************************** Harry Pollard Henry George School of LA Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel: (818) 352-4141 Fax: (818) 353-2242 *******************************
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