Badlands Journal

The history of radiation accidents testifies that governments routinely betray their citizens in deference to their nuclear weapons program and the nuclear industry. No, only one alternative is open to the people of Japan. They must become proactive. They must seize the initiative and wrest control from government and industry of the “perception” of the catastrophe.  -- Paul Zimmerman, Sept. 27, 2011
 

 

9-27-11
Global Ressearch
Fukushima and the Battle for Truth
Large sectors of the Japanese population are accumulating significant levels of internal contamination
by Paul Zimmerman
 

Fukushima’s nuclear disaster is a nightmare. Ghostly releases of radioactivity haunt the Japanese countryside. Lives, once safe, are now beset by an ineffable scourge promising vile illness and death.

Large sectors of the population are accumulating significant levels of internal contamination, setting the stage for a public health tragedy.

A subtle increase in the number of miscarriages and fetal deaths will be the first manifestation that something is amiss. An elevated incidence of birth defects will begin in the Fall and continue into the indefinite future. Thyroid diseases, cardiac diseases and elevated rates of infant and childhood leukemia will follow. Over the next decade and beyond, cancer rates will soar.

9-24-11

Mercury News
Replacement nurse involved in 'medical error' leading to patient death at Oakland hospital
By Harry Harris and Matthias Gafni
Oakland Tribune

http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_18972630

A replacement nurse at an Oakland hospital committed a "medical error" while administering a dosage of medication to a cancer patient leading to her death early Saturday morning, police and hospital officials said.

The name of the woman, a 66-year-old Oakland resident who had been a patient at the Summit campus in Oakland since July, was not released.

An autopsy is scheduled for Monday, but the woman's death is believed to have been caused when an Alta Bates Summit Medical Center replacement nurse "administered a nonprescribed

dosage of medication," said Oakland police Sgt. Mike Gantt. Police would not say what type of medication it was and how much was given.

The medication was administered, and a few hours later the patient was found unresponsive during rounds, and she died a half hour later at 1:03 a.m., Gantt said.

9-24-11
The Daily Newsl
ILWU Ladies Auxiliary protests alleged police brutality
By Tony Lystra
http://tdn.com/news/local/article_41e7df04-e71f-11e0-a311-001cc4c03286.html
Font Size:Default font sizeLarger font size.
 
John Markon / The Daily News
 Amanda Bornstedt, left, carried a homemade "Hugs for Thugs" sign at Saturday's pro-union rally for women in West Kelso because she "liked the non-violent message"

About 50 women, most of them members of the International Warehouse and Longshore Union's Ladies Auxiliary, staged a protest in West Kelso Saturday afternoon, alleging their members were brutalized by police during a protest at the EGT grain terminal Wednesday.

Nearly a dozen female protesters arrested as they helped block a train carrying grain to the Longview terminal complained of back injury, sprains and strains to their shoulders, said Karin Hogg of Longview, who identified herself as the Ladies Auxiliary vice president. One woman was diagnosed with a torn rotator cuff, she said.

Hogg noted that security officers employed by the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad arrested the women Wednesday, but she said local law enforcement officers watched. "Many of them laughed and they were high-fiving and fist-pumping," Hogg said of the local police.

 "Agriculture is not about producing food but about profit. Food is a side effect."-- Richard Levins, "Why Programs Fail," Monthly Review, March 2010
 
  
 
9-24-11
Independent Science New
New report links food, climate and agricultural policies
Jonathan Latham and Allison Wilson
http://independentsciencenews.org/news/new-report-links-food-climate-and-agricultural-policies/

Understanding of the 'problem' of agriculture took a giant step forward in 2007
with publication of the UN IAASTD report. This report, which was as important
for agriculture as the IPCC reports have been for the climate, pinpointed a move
to ecology-based agriculture as the key to meeting many other fundamental needs
such as clean water, safe food and sustainability. What the IAASTD didn't do, at
least directly however, was to focus on politics, especially the obstacles to
progress in improving agriculture.

This is a wonder idea -- to simply walk the best guess of what the route for the California High Speed Railroad might be.

Bravo for the Brothers from Hanford!

The next step is for the Valley growers, some of whom are old enough to remember other marches in past decades, to gather together with their heirs and assigns next April and hike from the Union Station in Los Angeles to San Francisco. CAll it the Ag Plutocrats' Pilgrimage against High Speed Rail.

9-19-11

Fresno Bee

Hanford brothers walk planned high-speed rail route…Tim Sheehan

http://www.fresnobee.com/2011/09/19/v-print/2545353/hanford-brothers-walk-planned.html

A bill to establish a committee to study the viability of a state bank for California has passed both houses of the state Legislature and now awaits the governor's signature. Bearing in mind that Gov. Jerry Brown has warned that he would veto many bills passed in this legislative session, we don't know what chances the bill has of becoming law but we would not have given it much chance to get through the Legislature just a few months ago. The governor may share the legislative desperation.

Badlands Journal editorial board

9-19-11
Al-Jazeerah, CCUN
California Legislature Passes Bill to Study State-Owned Bank
By Ellen Brown
http://www.aljazeerah.info/Opinion%20Editorials/2011/September/19%20o/California%20Legislature%20Passes%20Bill%20to%20Study%20State-Owned%20Bank%20By%20Ellen%20Brown.htm

AB 750, California’s bill to study the feasibility of establishing a state-owned bank that would receive deposits of state funds, has passed both houses of the legislature and is now on the desk of Governor Jerry Brown awaiting his signature. 

It could be the governor’s chance to restore the state to its former glory. As noted in Time Magazine:

The International Longshore and Warehouse Union, the ILWU, is battling a global grain-shipping corporate partnership in the Washington State port of Longview, near the mouth of the Columbia River.

The contenders are:

EGT is a joint venture of Bunge, STX Pan Ocean, and Itochu. EGT has contracted with General Construction Company, employer of Operating Engineers Local 701, to do the work that is the long-established jurisdiction of the men and women of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, Local 21. -- Longshore and Shipping News

The university has contributed about $1.225 billion to the state's economy since the campus began to operate in July 2000, officials reported. Of that, the institution has contributed close to $650 million to the San Joaquin Valley...Everybody, especially in this community, seems to be struggling financially," said Mary Miller, vice chancellor for administration at UC Merced. The local economy "is probably among the worst in the country, so I don't know what it would be like if UC were not here, but I do know that just the numbers that you look at in terms of contributing suggest that we are making a huge difference in the economy of the local community, and probably in the entire region." -- Merced Sun-Star, 9-15-11

Evidently, led by Dorothy Leland, the Existentialist Chancellor of UC Merced, Bobcatflak is reaching new heights of the Absurd. Perhaps Leland is actually the Da Da chancellor or the just plain Duh chancellor.

The university has contributed about $1.225 billion to the state's economy since the campus began to operate in July 2000, officials reported. Of that, the institution has contributed close to $650 million to the San Joaquin Valley...Everybody, especially in this community, seems to be struggling financially," said Mary Miller, vice chancellor for administration at UC Merced. The local economy "is probably among the worst in the country, so I don't know what it would be like if UC were not here, but I do know that just the numbers that you look at in terms of contributing suggest that we are making a huge difference in the economy of the local community, and probably in the entire region." -- Merced Sun-Star, 9-15-11

Evidently, led by Dorothy Leland, the Existentialist Chancellor of UC Merced, Bobcatflak is reaching new heights of the Absurd. Perhaps Leland is actually the Da Da chancellor or the just plain Duh chancellor.

This article is the beginning of an occasional series concerning foreclosures in Merced County -- the economic crisis that doesn't go away. 

Today’s example concerns Trustee’s Sale T.S. No. 08-2212-SP-CA, a ranchette in the North Merced area. (Even though Merced County denies the existence of any ranchettes in the county, on this particular road appears to contain a dozen ranchettes, suitable for grazing horses or other backyard ornaments.)

The property is about to be sold at public auction for $949,246.38.

It’s pricing history: in May 1999 it sold for $130,000; it was listed for sale in August 2010 for $298,000; in September, the listing was removed.

9-7-11
Counterpunch.com
Obama Has Betrayed Both
Workers and Environmentalists Unite!
by SHAMUS COOKE
http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/09/07/workers-and-environmentalists-unite/
When there are zero jobs available, any job will do. This fact has been exploited by corporations now re-labeling themselves ”job creators,” since being a job creator in a time of depression brings a religious status similar to a rain god during a drought. Democrats and Republicans have lavished eternal praise on the “job creators” and in consequence have created a political atmosphere that is rabidly pro-corporate “job creators” and anti-everything else.

In practice this means that ANY new law or regulation that hinders the power or profits of “job creating” corporations is instantly attacked as a “job killer.” This type of logic is good for bumper stickers and Tea Parties but bad for those who suffer under the giant power of corporations, including working people, the unemployed, the self-employed, and the environment.

"Congress isn't broken, it's fixed" -- Daniel Weeks

9-29-11
Truth Dig
The Election March of the Trolls
By Chris Hedges
http://www.truthdig.com/report/page2/the_election_march_of_the_trolls_20110829/

9-3-11
Golbal Research
Labor’s Demise As A Countervailing Power: "Labor Day" should be renamed "Corporation Day" or "War Day"
by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=26356

It is Labor Day weekend, 2011, but labor has nothing to celebrate. The jobs that once gave American workers a stake in capitalism have left and gone away. Corporations in pursuit of near-term profits have moved labor’s jobs to China, India, Indonesia, Taiwan, South Korea and Eastern Europe.

Labor arbitrage, that is, the substitution of foreign labor that is paid less than its productivity for American labor, has enriched Wall Street, shareholders and corporate CEOs, but it has devastated American employment, household incomes, tax base, and the outlook for the US economy.

This Labor Day week-end’s job report, announced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) on Friday, September 2, says zero net new jobs were created in August, a number 250,000 less than the amount of monthly job creation necessary to make progress in reducing America’s high rate of unemployment.

Executive Excess 2011: The Massive CEO Rewards for Tax Dodging

By Sarah Anderson, Chuck Collins, Scott Klinger, Sam Pizzigati

CEOs rale ot in while their corporations dodge taxes

Guns don't kill people, the old saw goes. People do.