Re: [Biofuel] Fukushima Decontamination Measures Are Making Things Worse
Hello Keith, Is the US government taking extra steps to inspect for radiation food and other goods being imported from Japan or is it each man for himself as usual ? Thanks for your emails, I appreciate them. Jo Simoes On Jan 8, 2013, at 5:17 PM, Keith Addison ke...@journeytoforever.org wrote: http://www.globalresearch.ca/fukushima-decontamination-measures-are-making-things-worse/5318105 Fukushima Decontamination Measures Are Making Things Worse Corruption and Cover-Up Lead to SPREAD - Rather than Containment - of Radiation from Fukushima Disaster By Washington's Blog Global Research, January 08, 2013 We've previously noted: Japan has severely underplayed the amount of radiation from Fukushima, putting Japanese residents and U.S. navy sailors in jeopardy Experts call Japan cleanup effort meaningless Š an endless task that's simply spreading around radiation. Tepco has taken extraordinary steps to hide radiation by blocking radiation monitors with thick metal and other foreign objects. And see this In a series of essays called Crooked Cleanup, leading Japanese news source Asahi shows the level of corruption and incompetence. For example: Cleanup crews in Fukushima Prefecture have dumped soil and leaves contaminated with radioactive fallout into rivers. Water sprayed on contaminated buildings has been allowed to drain back into the environment. And supervisors have instructed workers to ignore rules on proper collection and disposal of the radioactive waste. *** The decontamination work witnessed by a team of Asahi Shimbun reporters shows that contractual rules with the Environment Ministry have been regularly and blatantly ignored, and in some cases, could violate environmental laws. *** In signing the contracts, the Environment Ministry established work rules requiring the companies to place all collected soil and leaves into bags to ensure the radioactive materials would not spread further. The roofs and walls of homes must be wiped by hand or brushes. The use of pressurized sprayers is limited to gutters to avoid the spread of contaminated water. The water used in such cleaning must be properly collected under the ministry's rules. *** From Dec. 11 to 18, four Asahi reporters spent 130 hours observing work at various locations in Fukushima Prefecture. At 13 locations in Naraha, Iitate and Tamura, workers were seen simply dumping collected soil and leaves as well as water used for cleaning rather than securing them for proper disposal. Photographs were taken at 11 of those locations. The reporters also talked to about 20 workers who said they were following the instructions of employees of the contracted companies or their subcontractors in dumping the materials. A common response of the workers was that the decontamination work could never be completed if they adhered to the strict rules. Asahi reporters obtained a recording of a supervisor at a site in Naraha instructing a worker to dump cut grass over the side of the road. Moreover: Workers involved in cleaning up the radioactive fallout from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant disaster expressed concerns. One even apologized for what he did. But they were on the bottom employment levels in the decontamination process, and their words apparently meant nothing to their supervisors. *** The supervisor from Dai Nippon Construction told the 30 or so workers under his watch to dump whatever would not fit into the bags or to throw materials down the slope outside of the line marked by the pink tape. Whenever the supervisor was not present, the person taking his place gave similar instructions. The man questioned if the work could actually be called decontamination. He confronted the supervisor about his instructions on Nov. 27 and recorded the conversation. The man can be heard asking, Is it all right to just dump the stuff? The supervisor replied: Yeah, yeah, it's OK. It can't be helped. *** Even though I was following an order, I am sorry for polluting the river, the man said. Indeed, clean-up measures often make the radiation ariborne Š making it more dangerous: The airborne radiation level near the gutter before the cleaning water flowed in was 0.8 microsievert per hour. The radiation level near the cleaning water hovered between 1.9 and 2.9 microsieverts. The larger figure is close to the cutoff point in determining if residents should evacuate. *** In some cases, radiation levels at homes have even increased after decontamination, leading some workers to suspect that radioactive materials were blown into the area by wind. The only actual decontamination work which was done appears to have been right around radiation monitors, to create false low readings: We were told to clean up only those areas around a measurement site. Even worse, Japan is
[Biofuel] 2012 Hottest Year On Record...By Far
Burning 'Deep Purple': Australia So Hot New Color Added to Index An 'unparalleled setting of new heat extremes' continues - Jon Queally, staff writer Published on Tuesday, January 8, 2013 by Common Dreams http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/01/08 Climate Change, Lack of Political Will Leading to 'Global Perfect Storm': Report World Economic Forum warns of imminent global disaster ahead of economic summit - Jacob Chamberlain, staff writer Published on Tuesday, January 8, 2013 by Common Dreams http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/01/08-5 Avoiding a Climate-Change Apocalypse by Katrina vanden Heuvel Published on Tuesday, January 8, 2013 by The Washington Post http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/01/08-2 --0-- http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/01/08-7 Published on Tuesday, January 8, 2013 by Common Dreams 2012 Hottest Year On Record...By Far Tornadoes, drought, hurricanes contribute to second most extreme weather on books - Beth Brogan, staff writer The year that saw much of the country engulfed in a drought and the east coast submerged by Hurricane Sandy was officially the warmest on record-by far-for the contiguous United States, and saw the second most extreme weather conditions, government officials said Tuesday. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's State of the Climate report confirmed recent warnings by experts and a slew of government agencies that climate change is already well underway. The average temperature in 2012 was 55.3ºF, 3.2ºF above the average temperature for the 20th century and 1ºF above 1998, previously the warmest year on record. Jeff Masters of Weather Underground called the dramatic rise in temperature astonishing, noting, It is extremely rare for an area the size of the U.S. to break an annual average temperature record by such a large margin. We're taking quite a large step, Jake Crouch, a climate scientist from NOAA's National Climatic Data Center, told NBC News. Most striking was the number of locations across the country that broke their average annual temperature record, a statement from NOAA reads. More than a dozen of these locations also experienced their driest year on record. This disturbing news puts the heat on President Obama to take immediate action against carbon pollution, said Dr. Shaye Wolf, climate science director with the Center for Biological Diversity. The blazing temperatures that scorched America in 2012 are a bitter taste of the climate chaos ahead. Science tells us that our rapidly warming planet will endure more heat waves, droughts and extreme weather. The president needs to start making full use of the Clean Air Act to fight greenhouse gas emissions, before it's too late. Among the statistics from NOAA: Every state in the contiguous US had an above-average annual temperature for 2012, with 19 states seeing a record warm year and an additional 26 one of their 10 warmest. 2012 started with the fourth-warmest winter on record, followed by the warmest March and July. 2012 also saw the second-most extreme weather on the books, according to the Climate Extremes Index. The year brought 11 disasters that surpassed $1 billion in losses, including several tornados and hurricanes Isaac and Sandy, as well as a devastating drought that Crouch said may well continue into 2013. In all, 2012 was the 15th driest year on record. The drought got a lot of attention this summer when it was having impacts on agriculture, he said. More than 60 percent of the country is still in drought. And if things don't change, the drought is going to continue to be a big story in 2013. Worldwide, temperatures rose as well, prompting the World Meteorological Organization to say in November that the rate at which the Arctic sea ice was melting was alarming. But scientists expect La Niña, which tends to cool the global climate, to figure into global temperatures when they are released in coming weeks, The New York Times reports. Still, they expect global temperatures to be in the top ten warmest years ever, Crouch told NBC News. ___ Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel
[Biofuel] Showdown at San Onofre: Two Stricken Nuclear Reactors May Redefine a Movement
http://truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/17736-showdown-at-san-onofre-two-stricken-nuclear-reactors-may-redefine-a-movement Tuesday, 08 January 2013 Showdown at San Onofre: Two Stricken Nuclear Reactors May Redefine a Movement HARVEY WASSERMAN FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT Two stricken California reactors may soon redefine a global movement aimed at eradicating nuclear power. They sit in a seismic zone vulnerable to tsunamis. Faulty steam generators have forced them shut for nearly a year. A powerful No Nukes movement wants them to stay that way. If they win, the shutdown of America's 104 licensed reactors will seriously accelerate. The story of San Onofre Units 2 3 is one of atomic idiocy. Perched on an ocean cliff between Los Angeles and San Diego, the reactors' owners cut unconscionable corners in replacing their multi-million-dollar steam generators. According to Russell Hoffman, one of California's leading experts on San Onofre, inferior metals and major design failures turned what was meant to be an upgrade into an utter fiasco. Installed by Mitsubishi, the generators simply did not work. When they were shut nearly a year ago, tubes were leaking, banging together and overall rendering further operations impossible. Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas Electric have unofficially thrown in the towel on Unit 3. But they're lobbying hard to get at least Unit 2 back up and running. Their technical problems are so serious that they've asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to let them run Unit 2 at 70% capacity. In essence, they want to see what happens without daring to take the reactor to full power. The NRC has expressed serious doubts. On December 26 it demanded answers to more than 30 questions about the plant's technical realities. There have been assertions that unless San Onofre can be shown as operable at full power, its license should be negated. San Onofre's owners are desperate to get at least Unit 2 back on line so they can gouge the ratepayers for their failed expenditures. If the California Public Utilities Commission refuses the request, there's no way San Onofre can reopen. So nuclear opponents can now fight restart both at the federal level and with the state PUC. The state regulators have opened an in-depth investigation into what's happened at San Onofre, and the picture is not expected to be pretty. Economic analyses show the reactors to be uneconomical anyway. Experts warned California would suffer blackouts and brownouts without them, but nothing of the sort has happened. The only real reason San Onofre's owners want to get it back up is to charge the ratepayers for their failed repairs. The fiasco at San Onfre is being replayed at rust bucket reactors throughout the US. Progress Energy poked some major new holes into the containment at the Crystal River reactor it was allegedly fixing. Nebraska's Ft. Calhoun has been flooded. An earthquake hit Virginia's reactors with seismic forces that exceeded design specifications. In Wisconsin, Kewaunee's owners will shut it for economic reasons. A new study shows Vermont Yankee, under intense attack from a grassroots citizens' upheaval, has major economic benefits to gain from shutting down. Elsewhere around the US, technical and economic pressures have the industry on the brink. Meanwhile, the conversion to green power in Germany is booming. When 8 reactors were shut and the conversion to wind, solar and biomass became official policy, experts predicated energy shortages and soaring prices. But the opposite has happened as supply has boomed and prices have dropped. The same things will happen in California and elsewhere as these radioactive jalopies begin to shut. The effectiveness of citizen activism in California is now vastly multiplied as these two decrepit reactors become increasingly obsolete, inoperable and economically insupportable. As Kewaunee shuts, as Crystal River heads toward salvage, as No Nukes citizen action escalates, and as renewables and efficiency soar in performance and plummet in price, a green-powered era is dawning. But as Fukushima Unit 4's spent fuel pool teeters 100 feet in the air, we are reminded that the danger from the failed nuclear power experiment is far from over. The two reactors at San Onfre linger on atop major earthquake fault lines, just steps away from an ocean that could wash over them as sure as it did at Fukushima. The California No Nukes movement may indeed be on the brink of a major victory. But we had better get these reactors buried before disaster strikes yet again. --- Harvey Wasserman is author of SOLARTOPIA! OUR GREEN-POWERED EARTH and will speak Wednesday evening in Santa Monica for the shut-down of San Onofre. ___ Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org
[Biofuel] The Founding Fathers Versus The Gun Nuts
White House weighs broad gun-control agenda in wake of Newtown shootings By Philip Rucker, Published: January 5 http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/white-house-weighs-broad-gun-control-agenda-in-wake-of-newtown-shootings/2013/01/05/d281efe0-5682-11e2-bf3e-76c0a789346f_print.html The White House Just Set Gun Rights Activists Ablaze EVAN MCMORRIS-SANTORO JANUARY 8, 2013 http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/01/white-house-gun-rights-activists.php?ref=fpa --0-- http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/13786-the-founding-fathers-vs-the-gun-nuts The Founding Fathers Versus The Gun Nuts Tuesday, 08 January 2013 16:08 By Thom Hartmann and Sam Sacks, The Daily Take | Op-Ed Sorry, gun nuts, you're on the wrong side of our Founding Fathers. For example, in a tirade against CNN's Piers Morgan, Alex Jones argued, The Second Amendment isn't there for duck hunting. It's there to protect us from tyrannical government. It's an argument that's often echoed by gun nuts - as though their fully-loaded AR-15 with 100-bullet drum will keep them safe from Predator drones and cruise missiles. If indeed this is the true intent of the 2nd Amendment, protection from the government, then here's the newsflash: you guys are woefully outgunned. And the 2nd Amendment would have allowed you to own a cannon and a warship, so America today would look more like Somalia today with well-armed warlords running their own little fiefdoms in defiance of the federal government. But luckily, this was never the intent of the 2nd Amendment. Our Founding Fathers never imagined a well-armed citizenry to keep the American government itself in check. It was all about protecting the American government from both foreign and domestic threats. Poring over the first-hand documents from 1789 that detailed the Fist Congress' debate on arms and militia, you'll see a constant theme: the 2nd Amendment was created to protect the American government. The James Madison resolution on the issue clearly stated that the right to bear arms shall not be infringed since a well-regulated militia is the best security of a free country. Virginia's support of a right to bear arms was based on the same rationale: A well regulated Militia composed of the body of the people trained to arms is the proper, natural and safe defence of a free State Ultimately, as we know the agreed upon 2nd Amendment reads: A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. That reads like a conditional statement. If we as a fledgling new nation are committed to our own security, then it's best we have a regulated militia. And to maintain this defensive militia, we must allow Americans to keep and bear arms. The other defensive option would have been a standing army. But at the time, our Founding Fathers believed a militia was the one best defense for the nation since a standing army was, to quote Jefferson, an engine of oppression. Our Founding Fathers were scared senseless of standing armies. It was well-accepted among the Members of Congress during that first gun debate that standing armies in a time of peace are dangerous to liberty. Those were the exact words used in the state of New York's amendment to the gun debate. Later, in an 1814 letter to Thomas Cooper, Jefferson wrote of standing armies: The Greeks and Romans had no standing armies, yet they defended themselves. The Greeks by their laws, and the Romans by the spirit of their people, took care to put into the hands of their rulers no such engine of oppression as a standing army. Their system was to make every man a soldier and oblige him to repair to the standard of his country whenever that was reared. This made them invincible; and the same remedy will make us so. Had the early framers of the Constitution embraced a standing army during times of peace, then there would be no need for a regulated militia, and thus no need for the 2nd Amendment. Instead, they openly opposed a standing army during times of peace. Want proof? In the entire Constitution, there are no time limits on the power of Congress to raise money and pay for anything - except an Army. We can have a Navy forever. We can have roads or bridges or post offices or pretty much anything else that supports the general welfare without limit and in perpetuity. But an Army? That had to be re-evaluated every two years, when all spending for the past two years of army was zeroed out. It's right there in Article 1, Section 8, line twelve reads that Congress has the power: To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years. The Founders knew, from watching the history of Europe, that military coups by a standing army were a greater threat to a nation that most other nations. So they required us to re-evaluate our army every two years.
[Biofuel] Understanding Egypt in Year Three
President Mursi, IMF prepare austerity policies in Egypt By Johannes Stern 9 January 2013 http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/01/09/egyp-j09.html --0-- http://truth-out.org/news/item/13769-understanding-egypt-in-year-three Understanding Egypt in Year Three Tuesday, 08 January 2013 09:33 By Carl Finamore, CounterPunch | News Analysis The Muslim Brotherhood's political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), gets most of the attention these days when discussing Egypt. Criticism flows easily and the FJP's reputation has definitely been sullied and bloodied because of their numerous sectarian and undemocratic policies. But, what appears most remarkable is that the military establishment has been relatively unscathed in the polarized battles that have erupted the last several months. In fact, this is not accidental. It is the result of very clever political maneuvering by the country's military leaders. It is certainly true that FJP leader, President Mohamed Morsi, made himself an easy target by recklessly misusing his extensive constitutional authority to appoint cronies and to issue unilateral decrees. Just in the last few months, he stacked the Constituent Assembly with an unrepresentative majority that wrote a very controversial new constitution lacking internationally recognized rights for women and for workers. It was ultimately passed in December but, notably, with only one third of eligible voters showing up at the polls. Then, Morsi shocked the nation by issuing a decree disallowing any court oversight of his decisions, an embarrassingly blatant power grab that was formally reversed only after huge public demonstrations. But the president did not stop there. On the heels of his hotly contested decree granting the Egyptian president unlimited authority, as Erin Radford reported in the Dec. 11, 2011 Cairo Review, Morsi's amendments to the nation's 1976 trade union law signals potential suppression of the right to freely form unions. Radford is Middle East and North Africa program officer at the AFL-CIO supported Solidarity Center in Washington DC. Fatma Ramadan, an executive board member of the Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions (EFITU), also was quoted in Radford's article warning that Morsi is clearly preparing a systematic crackdown against Egypt's union movement, against the right to strike, against the right to organize and against union plurality. Igniting further opposition in late December, the president padded his FJP majority in the 270-member upper chamber of parliament by appointing an additional 90 delegates. These are, indeed, grievously divisive and offensive policies arousing critical attention against the FJP government but it is, nonetheless, still noteworthy that the military is largely given a free pass. How can this happen? Since the historic 1952 military officers' coup overthrowing the constitutional monarchy and ending British occupation, the Egyptian military has very craftily preferred a backstage role, mostly leaving overt repression to the notorious Ministry of Interior and mostly leaving government to nominal civilian rule. As you might suspect, this is neither altruism nor enlightenment by the corrupt coterie of generals who propped up Mubarak's decaying regime for 29 years. On the contrary, away from the spotlight, the generals are better able to stealthfully conduct the very lucrative business of accumulating personal wealth and private property. Credible diplomats, leading academics and scholarly economists generally agree the military controls 15 to 35 percent of the economy. The wide variance in estimates is itself testimony to the secretive nature of these military dealings and it has gotten even worse under the FJP government. The military has never had civilian oversight and the new constitution written largely under Muslim Brotherhood influence has even further immunized it against accountability writes Cairo University professor Dina El Khawaga in the Dec. 27, 2012 Egypt Independent. In fact, even with a new post-Mubarak constitution, it is still a mystery how large the military budget actually is, how much property the military owns and how billions of U.S. aid dollars are spent. This data is considered a state secret. Neither the government nor the new constitution challenges any of these privileges of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces (SCAF). Nonetheless, it should be obvious that unless the militarization of the economy is eliminated and unless the curtain of secrecy surrounding the armed forces is lifted, there will be no significant social or economic change in Egypt. Marriage of Convenience Despite their historical reluctance, the military command was forced to the forefront on February 11, 2011. The startling fact is that the military was the lone surviving institution left intact after Mubarak's forced resignation. In the days
[Biofuel] Behind the newly proposed US food regulations
FDA Offers Broad New Rules to Fight Food Contamination Saturday, 05 January 2013 11:07 By Stephanie Strom, The New York Times News Service | Report http://truth-out.org/news/item/13725-fda-offers-broad-new-rules-to-fight-food-contamination --0-- http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/01/09/fsma-j09.html Behind the newly proposed US food regulations By Naomi Spencer 9 January 2013 The federal Food and Drug Administration unveiled two proposed food safety rules on January 4, exactly two years after President Obama signed the Food Safety Modernization Act. While the proposals have been hailed as landmark improvements to US food oversight, they are not likely to be implemented for yet another three years, and will provide FDA inspectors with no meaningful enforcement powers. In fact, the rules are part of the drive of the Obama administration to deregulate industries across the board, allowing corporations to police themselves. Foodborne illness is an epidemic in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that one in six Americans-48 million people-are sickened by contaminated food each year. Of those, more than 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die. Experts acknowledge that these figures are underestimates, since most food poisoning cases are not reported. Major food recalls are a regular occurrence. Last year, the US had 37 produce recalls. The FDA depends almost entirely on the self-reporting and policing of the industry. Although it is responsible for ensuring the safety of 80 percent of the American food system, the agency inspects only 6 percent of domestic food producers and 0.4 percent of importers. Companies are left largely to operate entirely in the interest of profit, at the expense of the health of consumers and their workers. The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) was drafted after a series of deadly outbreaks caused by foods, including cantaloupe, eggs, spinach and peanut butter, that were under the purview of the FDA. The outbreaks killed hundreds of people and prompted a public outcry over conditions in the food processing facilities that were inspected. Investigations revealed highly unsanitary conditions at every site, suggesting that they were not exceptional cases across the industry. Exposés in the press also made clear that the FDA was aware of the deplorable conditions for years before outbreaks were connected to the facilities responsible. Obama signed the FSMA bill on January 4, 2011. Two years later, the New York Times noted, But it took the Obama administration two years to move the rules through the regulatory agency, prompting complaints that the White House was more concerned about protecting itself from Republican criticism than about public safety. Food safety advocates sued the administration to release the rules after the original January 4, 2012 deadline was missed. The FDA sought to have the lawsuit dismissed. The FDA summary emphasizes that the newly proposed rules build on existing voluntary industry guidelines for food safety, which many producers, growers and others currently follow. Under the first rule, domestic and foreign food producers will submit food safety plans to the agency that explain how they keep their facilities clean. The second rule pertains to preventing contamination from workers, water, and animals. Taken together, the rules are more than 1,200 pages long-a fact that will likely deter wide public review during the mandated 120-day comment period. While food producers would have latitude in determining how to execute the rules, the New York Times commented, farmers would have to ensure that water used in irrigation met certain standards and food processors would need to find ways to keep fresh food that may contain bacteria from coming into contact with food that has been cooked. New safety measures might include installing portable toilets so that laborers did not have to urinate in the fields. Companies may also post signs similar to those in restaurants that remind employees to wash their hands. The FDA estimates that large farm operations might incur costs up to $30,000 a year to comply, and the industry as a whole might see costs rise by $475 million. Any additional expenses are almost certain to be pushed onto consumers, who have been subjected to painful inflation over the past few years. Perhaps most significantly, the rules do nothing to empower inspectors with the ability to initiate a mandatory recall. The FDA, along with the CDC and US Department of Agriculture (USDA), remains limited to issuing requests that companies voluntarily warn the public and recall tainted products. This relationship effectively relegates government agencies charged with protecting public health to the role of public relations liaisons for corporations. The rules will not be formally adopted by the FDA for at least another year. Then,
[Biofuel] Judge: Manning endured unlawful pretrial punishment
Breaking: Military judge rules Bradley Manning illegally treated 112 days credit off any future prison sentence awarded-little to keep military from torturing next American soldier awaiting controversial trial Bradley Manning Support Network http://www.bradleymanning.org/ January 8, 2013 http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2013/01/08-7 Bradley Manning ensured leaks would not harm US, lawyer insists David Coombs tells military hearing that Manning had 'no evil intent' to help enemy and selected harmless material to publish Ed Pilkington in Fort Meade, Maryland guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 8 January 2013 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/08/bradley-manning-hearing-fort-meade-lawyer Resolution of SEP (UK) Congress: Defend Julian Assange and WikiLeaks 9 January 2013 http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/01/09/res3-j09.html --0-- http://www.salon.com/2013/01/08/judge_manning_endured_unlawful_pretrial_punishment/singleton/ WEDNESDAY, JAN 9, 2013 12:10 AM SAST Judge: Manning endured unlawful pretrial punishment The military court grants the soldier 112 days sentencing credit but does not drop his charges BY NATASHA LENNARD Military judge Col. Denise Lind ruled Tuesday that Pfc. Bradley Manning suffered unlawful pretrial punishment during his nine months held at Quantico. The soldier will thus be granted a sentence reduction of 112 days if he gets convicted, Lind ruled, which is a blow for Manning's defense team, who were hoping to see their client's charges dropped. Although Manning was confined to a windowless, single-occupant cell for 23 hours a day and subjected to a harsh regime of checks and searches, the judge ruled that he had not been held in solitary confinement. She did, however, determine the conditions of Manning's confinement to be excessive in relation to legitimate government interests, according to AP reports. Wednesday saw the beginning of Manning's January pretrial hearings, devoted to two motions brought by the government to limit or prevent certain evidence from being presented in the soldier's trial. According to Kevin Gosztola, reporting from Fort Meade, Md., Manning's defense lawyer David Coombs today argued that questions of motive should be allowed to be raised during the trial. He said the defense would like to argue that Manning selected information he believed would not cause damage to the U.S.. This 'subjective belief is relevant.' The military prosecutors argue that Manning's motives are irrelevant to determining whether he committed the offenses for which he is charged. The Guardian's Ed Pilkington, also reporting from the hearing, noted that Coombs told the court he would be calling as a witness Adrian Lamo, the hacker who alerted military authorities to Manning's WikiLeaks activities, to give evidence about the Web chat he had with Manning shortly before the soldier's arrest in Iraq in March 2010. The content of the Web chat, Coombs suggested, would be used by the defense to show that Manning selected information to leak that 'could not be used to harm the US or advantage any foreign nation'. ___ Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel
[Biofuel] What Does Biofuel Have To Do With the Price of Tortillas in Guatemala?
The U.S. and the Privatization of El Salvador By Eric Draitser Global Research, January 09, 2013 Stop Imperialism http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-u-s-and-the-privatization-of-el-salvador/5318221 --0-- http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2013/01/how-us-eu-biofuel-policy-beggars-global-south What Does Biofuel Have To Do With the Price of Tortillas in Guatemala? -By Tom Philpott | Wed Jan. 9, 2013 I used to write about biofuels a lot. The idea of devoting large swaths of prime farmland and annual gushers of agrichemicals to grow fuel crops-not to be eaten but to be set aflame in automobile engines-struck me as so nakedly stupid, so willfully ignorant, that surely pointing it out could help change policy. And so point it out I did, in dozens of blog posts and articles per year starting in 2006. (Here, here, here, here, and here are a few highlights). But the US and EU governments brushed off my verbal assault, maintaining their escalating biofuel mandates. Long about 2011, I realized that some blogger's crusade was never going to affect policy, so I largely stopped writing about the topic out of discouragement and, yes, boredom. Elisabeth Rosenthal's excellent New York Times article http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/science/earth/in-fields-and-markets-guatemalans-feel-squeeze-of-biofuel-demand.html?pagewanted=2_r=2hppagewanted=all on the effect of US/EU biofuel policy in Guatemala has knocked me out of my torpor. Rosenthal lucidly explains the double pinch the biofuel craze puts on citizens of developing nations. For urban residents, the US biofuel mandates-now sending 40 percent of the US corn crop into ethanol production-are pushing up the price of corn, a staple food in Guatemala. Rosenthal points to an Iowa State University study estimating that US biofuel policy added about 17 percent to global corn prices in 2011-bad news for people who rely on tortillas as a staple. Just three years ago, one quetzal-about 15 cents-bought eight tortillas; today it buys only four. And eggs have tripled in price because chickens eat corn feed, she writes. The result is dire: In a country where most families must spend about two thirds of their income on food, the average Guatemalan is now hungrier because of biofuel development, said Katja Winkler, a researcher at Idear, a Guatemalan nonprofit organization that studies rural issues. Roughly 50 percent of the nation's children are chronically malnourished, the fourth-highest rate in the world, according to the United Nations. And for Guatemala's subsistence farmers, biofuel mandates in the global north mean less land for growing food. The country's lush farmland is largely owned by a handful of families, Rosenthal reports, and they're finding it much more profitable to grow sugarcane and palm to satisfy Europe's biofuel mandates than to rent it to peasant farmers to grow food. The change in land use has been rapid and stark: Suchitepéquez Province, a major corn-producing region [for domestic food consumption] five years ago, is now carpeted with sugar cane and African palm. Pushed aside, small-scale farmers are scrambling for access to land. The article opens with a farmer who has had to resort to growing his family corn on the median of a busy highway. As a Guatemalan farm advocate told Rosenthal, There are pros and cons to biofuel, but not here ... These people don't have enough to eat. They need food. They need land. They can't eat biofuel, and they don't drive cars. Guatemala isn't an isolated case. In a globalized world, the expansion of the biofuels industry has contributed to spikes in food prices and a shortage of land for food-based agriculture in poor corners of Asia, Africa and Latin America because the raw material is grown wherever it is cheapest, she writes. Now, optimists might argue that a rising biofuel-export industry will at least bring much-needed jobs to Guatemala. But growing vast monocrops of sugarcane and palm are not labor-intensive, Rosenthal writes. So far, they've created 60,000 and 17,000 jobs, respectively-not many in a country with a population of more than 14 million. Others, like the authors of this 2012 USDA report, might point to Brazil and its prodigious sugarcane-ethanol industry as a harbinger of hope for Guatemala. Brazil, an industrial-agriculture powerhouse, has used domestically produced sugar-cane derived ethanol to become largely petroleum-independent. But as noted above, Guatemala needs food more than it needs car fuel-it has 68 cars per 1,000 residents, vs. 209 for Brazil (and about 800 for the US). And nearly all of the biofuel crops it produces are for export, anyway. Moreover, Brazil's sugarcane ethanol program is way overblown as environmental and social policy, as Nikolas Kozloff showed in a blistering 2010 Foreign Policy piece. The nation's voracious demand for sugarcane-derived ethanol is actively wiping out what's left of the
Re: [Biofuel] Let's Give Up on the Constitution
Hi Jason From another old bit of parchment: The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun wait... that was in the bible? i always presented it as a logical argument- had reasoning and eveything. :-) Why shouldn't it be logical? It's from Ecclesiastes. Careful, or I'll post the whole thing, I love it! I'm far from the only one, eg: Ecclesiastes has had a deep influence on Western literature: American novelist Thomas Wolfe wrote: [O]f all I have ever seen or learned, that book seems to me the noblest, the wisest, and the most powerful expression of man's life upon this earth - and also the highest flower of poetry, eloquence, and truth. I am not given to dogmatic judgments in the matter of literary creation, but if I had to make one I could say that Ecclesiastes is the greatest single piece of writing I have ever known, and the wisdom expressed in it the most lasting and profound. Admittedly it doesn't have a lot in common with the rest of the Bible. crap... anyways, i'm not saying he's wrong, i'm saying what good ol' mark twain did so long ago history might not repeat, but it certainly rhymes. its not the constitution, per se that is causing the problems, it's the fact that we didn't go right ahead and do what was suggested those 236 years ago, and re-write it every twenty-five years. Ah, yes. Instead of that it got 10 times older than its use-by date, and in the meantime the political system gained such a Gothic accumulation of patches and fixes and add-ons and excrescences that it's hard to see how it could possibly hope to achieve anything at all, let alone stuff like democracy and progress. Obese and senile. On the other hand, The Founding Fathers Versus The Gun Nuts, which I just posted, has something to say for it. i just about guarantee my kids have little or no connection to the social/political environment of even my parents, let alone that of 1776. Safe bet. shit happens, rules get outmoded, people die, and so on, ad infinitum. :-) Sounds like a New York version of Ecclesiastes. I like it! Bartleby's version: Ecclesiastes http://www.bartleby.com/44/4/1.html Regardds Keith Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2013 20:47:05 +0200 To: sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org From: ke...@journeytoforever.org Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Let's Give Up on the Constitution Hi Jason giving up on the constitution would just give the US a new constitution. tradition and respect? that's all well and good, but somebody's going to want to write it down sometime or another, and it'll be the same rusty old arguments with a different piece of parchment two hundred years from now... there's no such thing as new. Paper shredders? :-) Sorry... He does have a point though, more than one, IMHO. From another old bit of parchment: The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. Would that it were still so. Until not very long ago, people were born, and not long after that they'd die, and between the two events very little changed, if anything. Now, for many or most of us, change is about the only thing you can rely on (seven billion humans ain't new?). The Bible is a wonderful book to go cherry-picking in. I suspect it's the same with the other great religions. And I think the US Constitution is often just the same - I posted a recent article explaining the crucial difference between what it actually says and what most Americans think it says about gun rights, for instance. Too often, it's just dogma. You don't need it. Other countries don't even have a constitution, like the UK, for instance. Literal, or legalistic, interpretations of the past aren't always the best guide to dealing with today's problems, let alone tomorrow's. Things do change: And a genocide, and a civil war, over slavery. The interesting thing for me is that slavery was not a problem for Jesus (I'm not sure about most other major religions but I think this is true of them also), and nowhere does He mention democracy, equal rights, or any of the current cornerstone concepts we take for granted as truth. That is a surprise to me, and I wonder why, and I wonder what deep and complex lessons that might have for us, and what it tells us about our new thinking. And if democracy was not mentioned as a system of government, then what was, and why? They had the Roman Empire on one hand and kings and priests on the other, there probably wasn't much left to discuss. But then they didn't argue about healthcare either, nor women's rights, or racism, the environment, libraries, education. We do make progress, we humans, we have a much better class of problems now. All best Keith Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2013 23:54:37 +0200 To:
[Biofuel] The Syria Endgame: Strategic Stage in the Pentagon's Covert War on Iran
Iran urges US officials to stop warmongering against nations Tue Jan 8, 2013 http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/01/08/282432/iran-urges-us-against-warmongering/ Domestic Syria opposition rejects Assad offer Tolerated opposition group says it has ruled out direct talks, day after president outlines peace plan. Last Modified: 07 Jan 2013 http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/01/2013172143332758.html Syria's foreign minister calls for 'unconditional' dialogue with opposition Wednesday, 09 January 2013 By AL ARABIYA WITH AFP http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2013/01/09/259403.html Will There Be A World War Three? By Sergei Vasilenkov January 08, 2013 Pravda http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article33558.htm --0-- http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-syria-endgame-strategic-stage-in-the-pentagons-covert-war-on-iran/5317907 The Syria Endgame: Strategic Stage in the Pentagon's Covert War on Iran By Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya Global Research, January 07, 2013 Since the kindling of the conflict inside Syria in 2011, it was recognized, by friend and foe alike, that the events in that country were tied to a game plan that ultimately targets Iran, Syria's number one ally. [1] De-linking Syria from Iran and unhinging the Resistance Bloc that Damascus and Tehran have formed has been one of the objectives of the foreign-supported anti-government militias inside Syria. Such a schism between Damascus and Tehran would change the Middle East's strategic balance in favour of the US and Israel. If this cannot be accomplished, however, then crippling Syria to effectively prevent it from providing Iran any form of diplomatic, political, economic, and military support in the face of common threats has been a primary objective. Preventing any continued cooperation between the two republics has been a strategic goal. This includes preventing the Iran-Iraq-Syria energy terminal from being built and ending the military pact between the two partners. All Options are Aimed at Neutralizing Syria Regime change in Damascus is not the only or main way for the US and its allies to prevent Syria from standing with Iran. Destabilizing Syria and neutralizing it as a failed and divided state is the key. Sectarian fighting is not a haphazard outcome of the instability in Syria, but an assisted project that the US and its allies have steadily fomented with a clear intent to balkanize the Syrian Arab Republic. Regionally, Israel above all other states has a major stake in securing this outcome. The Israelis actually have several publicly available documents, including the Yinon Plan, which outline that the destruction of Syria into a series of smaller sectarian states is one of their strategic objectives. So do American military planners. Like Iraq next door, Syria does not need to be formally divided. For all intents and purposes, the country can be divided like Lebanon was alongside various fiefdoms and stretches of territory controlled by different groups during the Lebanese Civil War. The goal is to disqualify Syria as an external player. Since 2006 and the Israeli defeat in Lebanon in that year there was renewed focus on the strategic alliance between Iran and Syria. Both countries have been very resilient in the face of US designs in their region. Together both have been key players for influencing events in the Middle East, from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf. Their strategic alliance has undoubtedly played an important role in shaping the geo-political landscape in the Middle East. Although critics of Damascus say it has done very little in regard to substantial action against the Israelis, the Syrians have been the partners within this alliance that have carried the greatest weight in regards to facing Israel; it has been through Syria that Hezbollah and the Palestinians have been provided havens, logistics, and their initial strategic depth against Israel. From the beginning the foreign-supported external opposition leaders made their foreign policy clear, which can strongly be argued was a reflection of the interests they served. The anti-government forces and their leaders even declared that they will realign Syria against Iran; in doing so they used sectarian language about returning to their natural orbit with the Sunni Arabs. This is a move that is clearly in favour of the US and Israel alike. Breaking the axis between Damascus and Tehran has also been a major goal of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the Arab petro-sheikhdoms since the 1980s as part of a design to isolate Iran during the Iraq-Iran War. [2] Moreover, the sectarian language being used is part of a construct; it is not a reflection of reality, but a reflection of Orientalist conjecture and desires that falsely stipulate that Muslims who perceive themselves as being Shia or Sunni are inherently at odds with one another as enemies. Among the prostrating Syrian opposition
[Biofuel] Why you came to fight U.S.A.?
Excusing Torture, Again By Ray McGovern January 08, 2013 http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article33569.htm The Brennan nomination: A government of torturers and assassins 9 January 2013 http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/01/09/pers-j09.html Democracy, Terrorism and the Secret State From the Era of Gladio to the War on Terror By Makinde Adeyinka Global Research, January 07, 2013 adeyinkamakinde.blogspot.co.uk http://www.globalresearch.ca/democracy-terrorism-and-the-secret-state/5318091 --0-- http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article33567.htm Why you came to fight U.S.A.? Al Jazeera's Sami al-Hajj on 6-Year Ordeal of U.S. Detention, Torture Democracy Now ! Video January 08, 20123 AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman, with a Democracy Now! exclusive. As protesters mark the 11th anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo, and in this week of renewed discussions about Bush-era policies carried over into the Obama administration with the nomination of John Brennan to head the CIA, we turn to the story of one prisoner whose case we have followed for years: Sami al-Hajj, the only journalist held at Guantánamo. The U.S. military held him without charge in Afghanistan and at Guantánamo for more than six years. The Al Jazeera cameraman was arrested in Pakistan in December of 2001 while traveling to Afghanistan on a work assignment. He was then transferred to U.S. custody, first held at U.S. prisons in Kandahar and Bagram, then six months later transferred to Guantánamo. At Guantánamo, he was repeatedly beaten and tortured. In both Afghanistan and in Guantánamo, he was attacked. He was attacked by dogs. He was hooded. He was hung from the ceiling. He was prevented from sleeping for days. Interrogators questioned him more than a hundred times. A number of those interrogations included questions about who his bosses were at Al Jazeera. In January of 2007, Sami al-Hajj began a hunger strike to protest his imprisonment. The hunger strike continued for 438 days until his release in May of 2008. A few weeks ago, when Democracy Now! was in Doha to cover the U.N. climate change talks, we went over to Al Jazeera's headquarters so that I could sit down with Sami al-Hajj in person. Sami al-Hajj heads the Al Jazeera human rights and public liberties desk, a new position that they have created for him. He began by describing how he was arrested trying to cross the border from Pakistan back into Afghanistan. SAMI AL-HAJJ: We are inside Kandahar for one month, and then we return back to Pakistan after the situation became very bad in Kandahar, and we stay in Quetta, in Pakistan. And after Taliban is over, so our people here in Doha ask us to cross the border again to covering the situation there. On 15 of December, me and my colleague Sadah Abdelhaq, the correspondent of Al Jazeera, we are trying to cross the border in Chaman. And at that time, as I remember, there is more than 70 journalists from other agents came for same purpose, to cross the border to cover the situation in Kandahar. But myself only, they stopped me there. And when I asked why, they told me there is some paper came from the intelligence to stop Sami, a cameraman for Al Jazeera. And I think the guy who stopped me there, he told me, I know you because you crossed this border twice time. And I know you are a journalist. But I think some mistake. After they returned to their intelligence agency, they told me that there is some paper come from U.S. people to stop a cameraman of Al Jazeera; his name is Sami. Later on, in Guantánamo, and even in Bagram, the interrogator, when he asked about my-me about my story, he said for me, You are came to this point by wrong. We need actually another man. And later on, I understand that the U.S.A. intelligence, they ask Pakistan to stop our correspondent, Tayseer Allouni, not because Tayseer Allouni had done some wrong, but they need to know some information, because he is the last journalist who make interviews with Osama bin Laden. And they want to ask Tayseer Allouni- AMY GOODMAN: Tayseer Allouni was the last journalist to interview Osama bin Laden. SAMI AL-HAJJ: Yes, Osama bin Laden. So, for that purpose, they want to ask him where he met Osama bin Laden and who helped him to meet Osama bin Laden. By the help of our god, Allah, Tayseer safely he arrived in Doha. And I think that American intelligence, they know the cameraman of Tayseer, his name is Sami. Yes, he have a cameraman; his name is Sami. But that's Sami from Morocco. I'm from Sudan. So, by mistake, they asked the intelligence of Pakistan to stop the cameraman of Tayseer whose name is Sami. And they stopped me. But when I arrived at Bagram, the first point, and they interrogated me, the interrogator, he asked me, Why are you filming Osama bin Laden? I told him, I'm not the person who filming Osama bin Laden,
Re: [Biofuel] Fukushima Decontamination Measures Are Making Things Worse
Hello Jo Hello Keith, Is the US government taking extra steps to inspect for radiation food and other goods being imported from Japan or is it each man for himself as usual ? I don't really know. I suppose they are, and the Japanese government too, and their impeccable track-record so far for sheer effectiveness in all such issues leaves no cause for concern, so that's alright then. :-/ Thanks for your emails, I appreciate them. You're welcome, thanks for saying so. All best Keith Jo Simoes On Jan 8, 2013, at 5:17 PM, Keith Addison ke...@journeytoforever.org wrote: http://www.globalresearch.ca/fukushima-decontamination-measures-are-making-things-worse/5318105 Fukushima Decontamination Measures Are Making Things Worse Corruption and Cover-Up Lead to SPREAD - Rather than Containment - of Radiation from Fukushima Disaster By Washington's Blog Global Research, January 08, 2013 snip ___ Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel
