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PNN 5/10/15 - Earth Mother
RWS : ................................7:01
Brook Hines: .......................7:17 (Click for her most recent column)
Arun Gupta:.........................7:38
Meredith Ockman:...............7:59
Stephen Caruso:..................8:20
Merrilee Malwitz-Jipson:.....8:36 - recorded
1. Social Impact - Throw a mango, Doing the Maracaibo Mango!
And get apartment - Lets call it - The Time of the Mango
2. Economic Nattles / Nattering Nabobs of Negativism
“She’s absolutely wrong,” Barack Obama said, before I could even get the question out of my mouth.
He was talking about Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts senator and populist crusader whom Obama helped elevate to national prominence. Warren generally reserves her more acid critiques for Republicans and Wall Street, but in recent weeks she’s been leading a vocal coalition of leftist groups and lawmakers who oppose the president’s free-trade pact with 12 Asian countries.
This past week, as I had just reminded Obama, Warren launched her heaviest torpedo yet against the trade deal, alleging that some future president might use it as an excuse to undo the re-regulation of Wall Street that Obama signed into law in 2010. In fact, as the White House quickly pointed out, language in the pact would expressly prevent that unless Congress voted to allow it.
Three days after that broadside, when we sat down at Nike’s headquarters outside Portland, Ore., Obama still seemed unusually irritated.
“Think about the logic of that, right?” he went on. “The notion that I had this massive fight with Wall Street to make sure that we don’t repeat what happened in 2007, 2008. And then I sign a provision that would unravel it?
But like a marriage in which the spouses pretend to be happier than they really are,
Obama’s polite alliance with the populist left appears to be suddenly crumbling under the weight of free trade. The more Warren and Senate colleagues like Bernie Sanders and Sherrod Brown attack the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership, joined by big unions and environmental groups, the more liberated Obama seems to feel in portraying them as reckless and backward-looking, much as Clinton might have done. He evidences none of the self-doubt or conflicted loyalty that seemed plain when they criticized him for being too cautious on Wall Street reform or health care.
“She’s absolutely wrong,” Barack Obama said, before I could even get the question out of my mouth.
He was talking about Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts senator and populist crusader whom Obama helped elevate to national prominence. Warren generally reserves her more acid critiques for Republicans and Wall Street, but in recent weeks she’s been leading a vocal coalition of leftist groups and lawmakers who oppose the president’s free-trade pact with 12 Asian countries.
This past week, as I had just reminded Obama, Warren launched her heaviest torpedo yet against the trade deal, alleging that some future president might use it as an excuse to undo the re-regulation of Wall Street that Obama signed into law in 2010. In fact, as the White House quickly pointed out, language in the pact would expressly prevent that unless Congress voted to allow it.
Three days after that broadside, when we sat down at Nike’s headquarters outside Portland, Ore., Obama still seemed unusually irritated.
“Think about the logic of that, right?” he went on. “The notion that I had this massive fight with Wall Street to make sure that we don’t repeat what happened in 2007, 2008. And then I sign a provision that would unravel it?
“I’d have to be pretty stupid,” Obama said, laughing. “This is pure speculation. She and I both taught law school, and you know, one of the things you do as a law professor is you spin out hypotheticals. And this is all hypothetical, speculative.”
Obama wasn’t through. He wanted me to know, in pointed terms, that for all the talk about her populist convictions, Warren had a personal brand she was trying to promote, too.
“The truth of the matter is that Elizabeth is, you know, a politician like everybody else,” he said. “And you know, she’s got a voice that she wants to get out there. And I understand that. And on most issues, she and I deeply agree. On this one, though, her arguments don’t stand the test of fact and scrutiny.”
This is remarkable stuff for Obama. All presidents are forged, in a sense, by the moments at which they come to public life. Obama entered politics during Bill Clinton’s presidency, when urban liberals were growing disgusted with the president’s strategy of “triangulation,” popularly interpreted as the idea that you can win broad support by picking fights with the ideologues in your own party. Obama has always been reflexively averse to anything that might be construed as him pushing back against his friends to score political points with everyone else.
Throughout his presidency, Obama has mostly avoided public feuds with what his first press secretary, Robert Gibbs, liked to call the “professional left” — even when it’s meant sidestepping important disagreements on policy. Democratic politicians and interest groups, in turn, have been cautious in their criticism, offering only muted resistance when Obama stepped up the war in Afghanistan, or when he nearly negotiated a deal that would have restructured entitlements.
That he came to Nike’s sparkling, resort like campus Friday was telling in itself. Since at least the 1990s, labor activists have pointed to Nike as a company that exploited cheap foreign labor in order to increase the bottom line on sneakers and tennis shirts. (Sanders, citing a European study, charges that more than 300,000 workers in Vietnam work in Nike factories for something like 56 cents an hour.) It’s hard to imagine Obama, on some other issue or in some other stage of his presidency, choosing a setting quite so offensive to his base.
And yet here he was, sitting with me near a wall depicting marketable athletes (all the buildings at Nike are named for the sports heroes who made its logo synonymous with product endorsement), just after announcing that Nike intended to create 10,000 new jobs in domestic, high-tech manufacturing if the trade pact were approved. This time, rather than choosing his words carefully to preserve party unity, Obama was pressing his advantage.
“I had a conversation with all the labor leaders before this started,” he told me. “I’ve had a conversation with some of the more progressive members of Congress before. And I’ve listened to their arguments. And, as I said before, generally speaking, their arguments are based on fears. Or they’re fighting NAFTA, the trade deal that was passed 25 years ago, or 20 years ago.
“I understand the emotions behind it,” he told me. “But when you break down the logic of their arguments, I’ve got to say that there’s not much there there.”
Her comments don't pass the test of FACT
ZERO CHANCE OF BEING SUED
HE CAN SAY THAT BECAUSE: Since Senator Warren has been so demonstrably wrong on economic issues
3. Fukushima News Update
“Caldrons of hell” created at Fukushima, says energy company official; Disaster is recurring each day at plant — Japan Nuclear Expert: We have a crisis “of a severity that can’t be imagined anywhere else”; People have been abandoned and “thrown away”
May 1, 2015 (emphasis added): Yauemon Sato, the ninth-generation chief of a sake brewery operating here since 1790 [and president of electric power company Aizu Denryoku] likens the crippled reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant to “caldrons of hell.” In a recent interview with The Asahi Shimbun, Sato said the nuclear disaster “continues to recur every day”… Excerpts from the interview follow: Question: What drives you to be so active, including in the use of renewable energy? — Sato: You know the caldron of hell? You will be sent to hell and will be boiled in that caldron if you do evil. And there are four such caldrons in
Fukushima… And the disaster has yet to end. It continues to recur every day. More than 300 tons of water, contaminated with intense levels of radioactive substances, are being generated every day…
- 11:30 – The Prime Minister [said Fukushima] had been brought to a close. My reaction on hearing his words was, ‘Stop kidding.’ Reality is, though 4 years have passed, the accident has not yet been brought to a close at all.
- 15:15 – What is the situation within the core? How much has melted? Where is the fuel exactly? We do not know… This is an accident of a severity that cannot be imagined anywhere else… As you can see, we are facing a very, very difficult situation. The only choice that we have open to us is to somehow keep the situation from getting worse.
- 30:30 – We are in a very terrible situation, I would even call it a crisis.
- 55:30 – The Japanese government has issued a declaration that this is an emergency situation. As a result, normal laws do not have to be followed. What they are saying is that, in these very high radiation exposure level areas, they have basically abandoned people to live there. They’ve actually thrown them away to live there… The Cs-137 that’s fallen onto Japanese land in the Tohoku and Kanto regions, so much so that this area should all be put under the radiation control area designation [the Kanto region includes Tokyo and is home to over 40 million people].
- 1:01:00 – I really do want to impress upon you that the accident effects are continuing.
- 1:02:00 – Bahrain’s Ambassador to Japan: If you were the Prime Minister of Japan, what are you going to do with this very complicated situation?… Koide: When you have an emergency legally declared, regular laws are put on hold. What that means is people can be thrown away into areas where normally people should not be… The first thing I would do as Prime Minister is evacuate all the children that are in the contaminated areas.
- Watch Koide’s presentation here
Woods Hole scientist Ken Buesseler, Apr 24, 2015: “The bad news is, the Japanese found, through their own monitoring data, cesium levels weren’t going down in fish. That means they’re getting a source-they’re getting fed more cesium. There are still leaks at the site… There are 300 tons coming out a day… It’s maintaining levels that are high enough to keep fisheries closed… My latest concern is shifting, as the exposure for cesium has gone done [sic] 10,000 times, but it has stayed pretty constant for strontium-90… The U.S. government has failed us because they don’t analyze ocean waters for radioactivity… It’s crazy… Some say we shouldn’t have cesium in the
fish, but there’s already cesium in the fish [he says while laughing]… Don’t worry about the cesium.”
Deutsche Welle, Apr 9, 2015: Scientists have detected radiation… off the Canadian coast.Experts disagree as to whether the amount detected constitutes a dangerous level or not… [According to scientist Peer van de Rijk]… “There is only one safe level: that is zero level. Every amount is possibly harmful, and it adds up. You can never say that there is a safe dose for radiation.” If cesium-134 and cesium-137 accumulate in the body, this can damage cell structures… radiation is also likely to be measured in other parts of the globe… “Radiation travels with the wind and the ocean. And it’s very possible that it will show up everywhere else in the coming years,” van de Rijk adds.
4. Explosions at a Nuclear Plant in NY
TV: Huge explosion at nuclear plant near NYC — 200 foot fire ball reported — “Huge black ball of smoke… alarms went off immediately… emergency vehicles coming from every direction” — Fire reignited after burning for half an hour — Loudspeaker: “This is not a drill, please be aware, this is not a drill” (VIDEO)
Fox NY, May 9, 2015 (emphasis added): Explosion at Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant in NY— New York’s Indian Point Nuclear Power Facility… was rocked by an explosion on Saturday.
WPIX, May 9, 2015: Witnesses saw a huge explosion and ensuing smoke and fire… 40 miles north of New York City.
Reuters, May 10, 2015: Fire at transformer lasted 25 minutes… Several police units responded to the plant after receiving emergency calls from people who heard an explosion and saw smoke… Friday, Entergy returned… Unit 3 back to service after shutting it down the previous day to repair a steam leak… Large transformer explosions or fires are unusual…
Kempter’s Fire Wire: @Indian Point… Caller reporting 200 foot fire ball…
CBS NY, May 9, 2015: The blaze, which sent black smoke billowing into the sky… A hiker who took a photo of the smoke above Indian Point said he heard alarms and over a loudspeaker a message saying, “This is not a drill.”… “I want to make sure that things work the way they’re supposed to work in this kind of emergency,” the governor said.
CNN, May 9, 2015: “We saw just a huge black ball of smoke right across the river,” witness Gustavus Gricius told CNN. “We could smell the oily, electric burn smell.”… The blast sent the facility into an emergency response situation classified as an “unusual event,” according to [Entergy spokesman Jerry Nappi].
Reuters, May 9, 2015: Witnesses… report hearing an explosion followed by large plumes of gray and black smoke billowing from the plant. “It was a huge black ball of smoke and alarms went off immediately” [said] Gustavus Gricius, who was driving past when he heard the explosion.
NY Times, May 9, 2015: Gustavus Gricius… saw “a huge ball of black smoke” rising from the power plant… the sounds and smells of the scene soon made him nervous. “We could hear the paging system from the facility across the river, ‘This is not a drill, please be aware, this is not a drill,’… There was an electrical, oily burning smell. Once we smelled that that’s when we were like, ‘Let’s get out of here.’” Mr. Gricius said that he could hear “fire trucks and emergency vehicles coming from every direction.”
NBC NY, May 10, 2015: The fire started up again after being extinguished but has since been put out, officials said.
5. Electro-Magnet Pollution
Press release from Parents For Safe Technology Website:
Katie Singer
www.ElectronicSilentSpring.com
PRLog - March 16, 2015 - Princeton University removed its position statement on wireless safety from their website after concerns were raised that Princeton's information was "outdated and inaccurate".
Starting in early 2014, a parent, Thea Scarato, wrote the radiation safety officer detailing point by point why the Princeton's website needed to be updated to accurately reflect the state of science on
health risks from wireless radiation. By August of 2014, Princeton had pulled down all information related to wireless radiation.
The website came to the attention of Scarato after she raised concerns about the safety of the WiFi in her children's elementary school. The Princeton position statement was presented to her as validation that
wireless networks were "safe".
"I decided to write a letter because decisions impacting my children's health were being made based on Princeton's outdated information. I would hope Princeton now gives this issue the due diligence it
deserves. Why is Wifi being rolled out when so many scientists are calling for caution around the world?" stated Scarato of her actions.
In February 2014, Scarato first wrote a letter to the Director of Environmental Health and Safety at Princeton University asking that Princeton update the information on wireless. The letter critiqued the
information on the Princeton website, provided documentation for each point and called the website data "outdated and inaccurate." Scarato noted that the "New" Study was actually from 2007 and did not include the 2011 International Agency for the Research on Cancer's Class 2 B Carcinogen classification nor the growing body of research showing neurological, immune and reproductive damage.
She followed up with several letters and phone calls. Other parents wrote including the National Association for Children and Safe Technology. By August 2014, Princeton had removed the wireless
information.
The now retracted Princeton Position Statement on Wireless was also used by the National Association for Independent Schools (NAIS) as a reference in their 2014 NAIS Non-Ionizing Radiation: Literature
Review. NAIS serves over 1,700 schools. Scarato stated that, "I have heard from parents in other states whose children's schools also referenced the outdated Princeton site to support the WiFi rollout.
Does Princeton realize just how many schools were relying on their site?"
In the final email exchange Princeton staff stated that recent reviews "affirm that RF exposure from WiFi-based devices does not pose a hazard to the general public."
"How can a Class 2 B possible carcinogen that "needs more research" be called safe by Princeton? How could I, as a mother, just ignore the research showing brain damage at levels thousands of times below our governments regulations ? It might take decades to prove -just like asbestos did, but what about the years my children will have been exposed? We won't be able to turn back the clock," stated Scarato
adding, "If that is their position, then why doesn't Princeton place this safety assurance on their website and provide us with the up-to-date scientific documentation backing such a stance?"
The changes to the Princeton University website are vieweable on the Parents For Safe Technologywebsite which has posted Before/After screen shots and the email exchanges. The website shares information
on wireless to parents so they can take simple "actionable" steps to increase their children's health and well-being.
Canary in a Coalmine Films
