Despite Mitts Campaign, they think they'll WIN!

The only way they can win, is the voter fraud they accused us of. 

And the little thing called OWNERSHIP and CONTROL of the VOTING technology. 

They clearly don't want the female voter, and they've demonstrated again and again the same goes for the black or brown voter, and despite the inadvertent truth Mittsy spoke in Boca.  A lot of that remaining 54% is made of those aforementioned voters. 

Remember Mitts immigrant control plan was "Voluntary Emigration" which when he proposed it was regarded widely as a joke. After all they have voluntarily came here!

So since anyone can see he's not breaking a sweat - in this Republican Stroll to the election. They seem to be acting like its in the bag. What's worse is they think they can conceal this pending  corporate coup. Maybe they plan to pretend, just like Bush 2 "Hey, it's a legit election:. 

Honey "Katey bar the door" we're going to see a RIGHTWING AGENDA with corporatists & theocrats RUNNING WILD  with the Standard "Wars a Poppin"  theme.

PNN - the Unconventional Convention Show

PNN
9/22 - Guests

Mark Pafford       - 07:10:00 PM      -  07:30:00 PM
       
Susan Nilon       -  07:32:00 PM -      07:47:00 PM
       
Rob Abston      -  07:48:00 PM  - 07:58:00 PM
       
Susan Smith      -  08:00:00 PM      -  08:10:00 PM
       
Meredith Ockman    08:12PM     -  08:20:00 PM
       
Luis Cuevas      -  08:21:00 PM      -  08:30:00 PM
       
Panel              -  08:30:00 PM      -  09:00:00 PM

Events:
Paramilitarism and the Assault on Democracy in Haiti Thurs | Sept. 27 | 2 pm | Performing Arts Bldg. (PA) 101
Visiting author/sociologist Jeb Sprague (University of California, Santa Barbara) investigates the role of right-wing paramilitarism in undermining the democratic aspirations of the Haitian people. Free public lecture presented by the Peace Studies Program. More information at 561-799-8226 or dmcgetch@fau.edu. http://monthlyreview.org/press/books/pb3003/

Jamaican Independence Fifty Years Later: A Lecture by Noted Author Rachel Manley
Wed | Oct. 10 | 3 pm | Board of Trustees Room, Administration Building (AD)
Rachel Manley, as a member of Jamaica's most famous political family, provides a unique inside perspective on decolonization and independence. Sponsored by the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Art and Letters, Ethnic Studies Certificate Program, English Department, Political Science Department, and Philosophy Department. For more information, contact Raphael Dalleo at rdalleo@fau.edu.


From Invasion to Exploitation--
Sunday, October 14, 2012: gather at 11:30 a.m.  @NW 41st St. & NW 97th Ave, Doral, FL
From the invasion by Columbus in 1492 to the struggles of today in the tomato fields of Florida, the peoples of the Americas have suffered 520 years of repression while giving of themselves in 520 years of resistance. Join us to work for justice and celebrate our successes.
From the Invasion to Exploitation--Struggle Brings Victory from Ecuador & Nicaragua to our Tomato Fields. Protest the existence of the SOA/WHINSEC, reject the use of drones by the U.S. Southern Command against our brothers & sisters in Latin America and demand peace & justice for all the peoples of the Americas.
Sponsored by: CODEPINK: Miami & SOA Watch: South Florida. Co-sponsors include: Coalition of Immokalee Workers; CODEPINK: South Florida; Progressive Democrats, Miami.
For more information call Daniela @ 786-343-3796 (Spanish language),
Linda @ 305-801-0245, or Ray@ 754-423-0051.

SCPA - PROGRESSIVE FEST
OCT 21 10AM - 6PM
===============================
News Items

0. Union Statement on the Chicago Teachers Strike
“We certainly watched the strike with great interest because the Chicago teachers were working through many of the same issues we’ve had to deal with in Florida. We’re also concerned about the misuse of testing for evaluations and merit pay – concepts that have never worked and are doomed to failure in their present forms. We’re also concerned with issues like proper funding for our schools, class size and the conditions of our classrooms. We salute the Chicago teachers for having the courage to go out on strike to call attention to these issues.”

Mark Pudlow, spokesman,  Florida Education Association

1. BP and the spill and the stain and the poisoning goes on
Last year, the U.S. Coast Guard announced the Gulf Coast would shift to a Shoreline Cleanup Completion Plan, which would lay out the process for determining how formerly oiled areas can be declared clean.
Federal officials and all Gulf states signed onto the plan except Louisiana. State officials said it leaves Louisiana's vulnerable beaches and marshes open to continued oiling and doesn't hold BP accountable for long-term monitoring and cleanup of oiled shores.
“For well over a year the state has been pushing BP to remove this oil. It was obvious it was there,” Graves said. “Their refusal to take proactive steps to remove the oil has put us in this predicament now.”
He added that BP was trying to remove portions of Elmer's Island beach from active cleanup shortly before Hurricane Isaac uncovered oil.
Graves said the state is concerned because the “intrusive, mechanical approach” to cleaning oil from beaches will dig up too much of the beach on already vulnerable shoreline. Without compacted beach sand, shores will be more exposed to erosion. The process will also impact microorganisms that live in the sand.
“When you dig up and expose those organisms to sunlight and the elements, you end up killing and changing these ecosystems,” Graves said.
Graves said BP's request was a “blanket deep-cleaning proposal across south Louisiana,” a request the state finds “too blunt and intrusive.”
Lafourche Parish President Charlotte Randolph said that the cleaning process wasn't ideal, but it might be a necessary evil to get remaining oil off of Lafourche's beaches.
"We're not thrilled with it, but simultaneously, we can understand that to get to the root of the problem we might have to dig that far down," Randolph said.

2. INDIAN & JAPANESE REACTORS
The CAG has come to be known as one of the few watchdogs of mention in the political morass that exists in India today. When it released its findings on the state of functioning of the AERB, it was simply formally putting across what many have been highlighting for years now: That the AERB — far from its actual mandate of being a regulator — functions as a self-certification arm for the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited, and instead of regulating the serious atomic energy industry, the AERB certification has become a mere rubber stamp. This being a matter of national shame, it calls for immediate remedial steps.
After all, no country can take the risk of a nuclear accident lightly because of the enormous social, environmental and economic costs involved. The Japanese Government is still calculating the economic costs of the Fukushima disaster.
An independent inquiry into the Fukushima disaster showed complicity between the Government, the regulator and the operator, all of which led to the ‘man-made’ disaster of shocking proportions. The report, which was an investigation done by a Japanese parliamentary committee, categorically states that the cause for the meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor was neither the earthquake nor tsunami, it was caused because of “willful negligence”. It was termed as a ‘man-made’ disaster — “Made in Japan” is how it was called by the committee.

3. Three Mile Island - By NBC News and wire services
A reactor at Three Mile Island, the site of the nation’s worst nuclear accident, shut down unexpectedly on Thursday afternoon when a coolant pump tripped and steam was released, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission told NBC News.
The system tripped when "the pump stopped operating and created a power/flow imbalance," said NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan.
The plant responded as designed and is stable with no impact on public health or safety, added NRC spokeswoman Diane Screnci.
If any radiation was in the released steam, Screnci said, it would be below detectable levels.
Exelon, the plant operator, said in a statement that "during the shutdown, steam was released into the atmosphere, creating a loud noise heard by nearby residents."
A NRC inspector based at the plant "responded to the control room immediately after the reactor trip to independently assess control room operators' response to the event and ensure safety systems were functioning as designed," Sheehan said. "He did not identify any immediate concerns with operator or equipment performance."
Plant operators were not yet sure what caused the problem.
"Once the reactor is sufficiently cooled down, plant personnel will be able to access the containment building and troubleshoot the problem," Sheehan added.
Located about 12 miles south of Harrisburg, Pa., Three Mile Island in 1979 saw a partial meltdown of one of its nuclear reactor cores. Small amounts of radiation were released into the environment when the reactor core lost cooling water, exposing the highly radioactive fuel rods.
A presidential commission later said the accident was "the result of a series of human, institutional and mechanical failures."


4. A US army soldier who fled to Canada five years ago to avoid serving in Iraq has been arrested in the US after losing her deportation case.
Kimberly Rivera, a mother of four, had claimed refugee status in Canada, but she was ordered to leave last month.
On Thursday she voluntarily went to a border crossing in New York State, where she placed into military custody, anti-war campaigners say.
She faces between two and five years in prison, her lawyer said.
Ms Rivera served in the Iraq war in 2006, but on her return to the US said she had become disillusioned with its cause and thought it was "immoral".
She went to Canada with her husband and children while on leave and between deployments in 2007.


=======================================
Conventions


REPUBLICAN - TAMPA
1. Romney Speech
2. Ann's Speech
3. The Republican Platform
4. the Clint Eastwood Speech
5. The campaign
6. the tax documents release
7. protestors

- AUDIO - Republican Excerpts - Ann Romney & Paul Ryan [5:56 min]
- AUDIO - SUSAN NILON on Republican Convention +  [10:34 min]
- AUDIO - Debate Brown & Warren [5:56 min]
- AUDIO - Democratic Convention Excerpts [6:24 min]
- AUDIO - SARAH SILVERMAN - on VOTER FRAUD  [3:46 min]

DEMOCRATIC - Charlotte
1. President Obama's Speech
2. Michelle Obama's Speech
3. The Democratic Platform (adding in God & Israel)
4. The Clinton Speech
5. the campaign
6. protestors

Koch Brothers Movie in a Church?

Responding to a L2E in the Stuart News Decrying the showing of the Greenwald film EXPOSING THE KOCH BROTHERS... I decided to let a little light into a narrow mind.

If you learned anything about the Unitarian Universalists you might have learned they pride themselves on being open minded and having the intellectual stamina to be able to hear and then weigh a range of opinions. They believe themselves capable of finding a commonality of interests in the widest range of religious perspectives.

Why would they show a film that undertook to expose the Koch Brothers money behind so much of what is intended to pass for "t" party "grass roots" activity like providing funding for printings, gatherings, buses, national conferences.

Some of us, are concerned about the subversion of the regulations that protect Americans from corporate greed and its collateral damage to air, and water. Now we face a new pollution, a poisoning of the voting process itself.

We see the fruit of the Citizens United decision whose fallout is a new American Political landscape no longer "One Man, One Vote", it has become "One Dollar one Vote". And when the "filthy" rich exercise that Money-Muscle not just to sell product but instead to promulgate legislation across the country with an agenda that has in state after state distorted policies in wide areas of civic life, this distorts civic life.

Besides the privatization of civic resources we see in story after story, add in a new sanitized "Jim Crow" which places a new series of voter registration hurtles to severely constrain poor and minority voters. This in addition to purges of voter rolls all funded and promoted by the Koch Brothers and their Ugly Implementation Engine ALEC.

See the hand of ALEC and its mass-marketing of a nation-wide RIGHTWING legislative agenda, powered by rivers of cash flowing from the Koch Brothers. Their agenda stretches back to their father's Birch Society.

Its seems the Koch Brothers and their allies have decided on the stealthier path rather than foment an armed coup, they decided to just purchase a legislative agenda, BUY the Voting Machines, Fund the Lawmakers and then privatize the whole country placing it in the cool dark place in the center of their dark political hearts. They have purchased an "E" ticket for all Americans, and plotted a oneway trip back to the feudal age.

Many of us, think that the best first response is to educate Americans so they understand what direction, these people and their allies have chosen for our once great nation. Maybe, if we are informed, it can be stopped.

Que Bono?  (Who benefits?)

Progressive News Network  9/9/12
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Special News Guest: Prof. Mark Naison (pre-recorded)
                         African American Studies Director, Fordham University

Matthew Schwartz - [Florida Wildlands]          7:10:00 PM

Rebecca Marques  - [Oceana]                         7:26PM PM

Drew Martin           - Palm Beach Water Board  7:45PM 
                                  (pre-recorded)

Mark Pafford             8:15pm - 8:30pm
   
==========================================================
National call in day September 24
Call Assistant U.S. Attorney Barry Jonas at 312-353-5300 x 68027
Tell him to "End the investigation of anti-war and international solidarity activists."
SCPA Progressive Fest, Communities in Action
Sunday, Oct. 21, 2012 from 11:00 to 5:00 pm
Eau Gallie Civic Center
1551 Highland Avenue, Melbourne

REEL POLITIQUE
October 27th, 6:15 PM

"Politicians are actors who read from a script and what we, the Koch Brothers,
want to do is to write that script." (Jane Mayer, The New Yorker)

Join us for our screening and discussion of Robert Greenwald's superb documentary,
"Koch Brothers Exposed."

See how much influence you could have if you only had $50 billion - you could buy politicians willing to: suppress voting rights, destroy social security, deregulate environmental laws, deny climate change, re-segregate schools, corrupt education, fund extremist think-tanks, determine media "news" and be responsible for illnesses and deaths by the dumping of carcinogens in populated areas.
Our program will begin at 6:15 PM with fabulous music performed by PinkSlip singers and musicians Joan Friedenberg and Bill Bowen.

Please visit their website: http://www.pinkslipband.com/
Our film begins at 7:00 pm followed by an informative discussion led by Richard Spisak, author, blogger and news director of Progressive News Network: http://averyvoice.com/progressive_news_network.html

“REEL POLITIQUE” is a film series that addresses the need to understand our political world.
Our screening and discussion will be at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Boca Raton, 2601 St. Andrews Blvd.

Location: west of 95, north of Glades Rd., on the west side of the street (across from Pine Crest School). The film will be shown in the Sanctuary (enter front door).
To help UUFBR defray expenses, a $5 donation is suggested.
Martin Lipschultz and Susan Caruso
mart10@bellsouth.net

========================================================================
PNN STORIES
1. 'Unprecedented,' 'Amazing,' 'Goliath': Scientists Describe Arctic Sea Ice Melt
Arctic Sea ice levels continue to drop below record set on Aug. 26
- Common Dreams staff
The rate of Arctic Sea ice melt has caught scientists by surprise, leaving them to describe the current record low levels as "amazing," "a Goliath" and "unprecedented."  While a record low was recorded on Aug. 26, the ice level continues to fall, and the National Snow and Ice Data Center reports that there is still a week left in the melting season.
The speed of the Arctic ice melt is astounding, scientists say. "It is a greater change than we could even imagine 20 years ago, even 10 years ago," Dr. Kim Holmen, international director of the Norwegian Polar Institute told the BBC. "And it has taken us by surprise and we must adjust our understanding of the system and we must adjust our science and we must adjust our feelings for the nature around us."
"This year's melting season is a Goliath," also notes geophysicist Marco Tedesco, director of the Cryospheric Processes Laboratory at City University of New York, the Wall Street Journal reports. "The ice is being lost at a very strong pace."

These scientists' opinions are no anomalies. Weather Underground co-founder Dr. Jeff Masters writes that "Every major scientific institution that tracks Arctic sea ice agrees that new records for low ice area, extent, and volume have been set. These organizations include the University of Washington Polar Science Center (a new record for low ice volume), the Nansen Environmental & Remote Sensing Center in Norway, and the University of Illinois Cryosphere Today."
The National Snow and Ice Data Center illustrates the melt since 1979 in the graph below, showing a decline in the ice extent at 10.2% per decade:
 Published on Friday, September 7, 2012 by Common Dreams

2.BP Oil Spill, Tar Balls Churned up by Isaac
- Common Dreams staff
Oil that has washed up along the Gulf Coast in the aftermath of Hurricane Isaac has now been traced to the BP Deepwater Horizon oil disaster of 2010, according to scientists who examined the waste.
Scientists at Louisiana State University (LSU) ran tests on the large globs of oil waste, known as 'tar balls', that washed up on the shores of two Louisiana beaches last week. The tests revealed the waste matched the biological makeup of the hundreds of millions of gallons of oil that originated from the BP spill.
Since hurricane Isaac landed last week, tar balls have been washing up on beaches in Alabama and Louisiana, and on Tuesday, "a large tar mat" was discovered on the beaches of Louisiana's Elmer's Island, according to the Guardian. State officials were forced close a 13-mile stretch of beach and restricted fishing in the area.
Ed Overton, the LSU chemist who did the state tests, told the Guardian that more oil was likely buried along the coast, but it is difficult to uncover and clean up. The team of scientists stated that since 2010, tropical storms have consistently washed up oil debris along the coast.
"We're in year three and this seems to be the new normal for the Gulf Coast," Researcher Joel Hayworth said. "For some unforeseeable time, this is going to be the new normal for the beach."

PNN STORIES

3.Radiation 258 times legal limit found in fish off Fukushima
August 22, 2012,  The Asahi Shimbun

    Fish containing 258 times the legal limit of radioactive cesium have been found in waters off the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., said on Aug. 21.    The reading for two rock trout, caught about 20 kilometers to the north of the plant, showed 25,800 becquerels per kilogram, the highest yet detected in surveys conducted after last year’s nuclear accident.

4. Alarming Level Of Radiation Detected In Fish Caught Off Fukushima
August 23, 2012

August 21, 2012,  RTT News

    The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), operator of the tsunami-wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan, says it has detected radiation 380 times more than that of the government safety limit in a fish caught off the Fukushima prefecture.

    TEPCO is measuring radiation exposure in fish and shellfish caught within 20 kilometers of the disabled plant from March this year. It caught 20 kinds of fish and shellfish from five locations from mid-July to early August.
5. Plutonium Detected at 10 Locations in Fukushima
August 23, 2012
August 21, 2012 Jiji Press

    Tokyo, Aug. 21 (Jiji Press)–Plutonium believed to originate from Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant has been detected at 10 locations in four municipalities in Fukushima Prefecture, the science ministry said Tuesday.

    The highest reading was 11 becquerels of plutonium-238 per square meter, detected in the town of Namie. The figure is about 1.4 times more plutonium than that originated from fallout from nuclear weapons tests abroad. However, the ministry said that there is no health hazard. The other municipalities are the town of Okuma, the village of Iitate and the city of Minamisoma.

6. 'Severe abnormalities' found in Fukushima butterflies
By Nick Crumpton BBC News

Exposure to radioactive material released into the environment has caused mutations in butterflies found in Japan, a study suggests.

Scientists found an increase in leg, antennae and wing shape mutations among butterflies collected following the 2011 Fukushima accident.

The link between the mutations and the radioactive material was shown by laboratory experiments, they report. The work has been published in the journal Scientific Reports.

Two months after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident in March 2011, a team of Japanese researchers collected 144 adult pale grass blue (Zizeeria maha) butterflies from 10 locations in Japan, including the Fukushima area.

When the accident occurred, the adult butterflies would have been overwintering as larvae.
Unexpected results By comparing mutations found on the butterflies collected from the different sites, the team found that areas with greater amounts of radiation in the environment were home to butterflies with much smaller wings and irregularly developed eyes.

"It has been believed that insects are very resistant to radiation," said lead researcher Joji Otaki from the University of the Ryukyus, Okinawa.

"In that sense, our results were unexpected," he told BBC News. Pale grass blue butterfly The Japanese researchers have been studying the species for more than a decade Prof Otaki's team then bred these butterflies within labs 1,750km (1,090 miles) away from the accident, where artificial radiation could hardly be detected.

It was by breeding these butterflies that they began noticing a suite of abnormalities that hadn't been seen in the previous generation - that collected from Fukushima - such as malformed antennae, which the insects use to explore their environment and seek out mates.

Six months later, they again collected adults from the 10 sites and found that butterflies from the Fukushima area showed a mutation rate more than double that of those found sooner after the accident.

The team concluded that this higher rate of mutation came from eating contaminated food, but also from mutations of the parents' genetic material that was passed on to the next generation, even though these mutations were not evident in the previous generations' adult butterflies.

The team of researchers have been studying that particular species butterfly for more than 10 years.

They were considering using the species as an "environmental indicator" before the Fukushima accident, as previous work had shown it is very sensitive to environmental changes.

"We had reported the real-time field evolution of colour patterns of this butterfly in response to global warming before, and [because] this butterfly is found in artificial environments - such as gardens and public parks - this butterfly can monitor human environments," Prof Otaki said.

The variations in colouration of the butterfly were previously reported by Prof Otaki and his colleagues in the open access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology, as he told BBC News.

"Colour-pattern changes of this butterfly in Aomori, Japan was [previously] observed only in the recent northern range margins during a limited period of time. Most importantly, the range-margin population did not show any 'abnormality' per se," he clarified.

The findings from their new research show that the radionuclides released from the accident had led to novel, severely abnormal development, and that the mutations to the butterflies' genetic material was still affecting the insects, even after the residual radiation in the environment had decayed away.

"This study is important and overwhelming in its implications for both the human and biological communities living in Fukushima," explained University of South Carolina biologist Tim Mousseau, who studies the impacts of radiation on animals and plants in Chernobyl and Fukushima, but was not involved in this research.

"These observations of mutations and morphological abnormalities can only be explained as having resulted from exposure to radioactive contaminants," Dr Mousseau told BBC News.

The findings from the Japanese team are consistent with previous studies that have indicated birds and butterflies are important tools to investigate the long-term impacts of radioactive contaminants in the environment.
PNN STORIES

7. Arctic ice melting at 'amazing' speed, scientists find

Scientists in the Arctic are warning that this summer's record-breaking melt is part of an accelerating trend with profound implications.

Norwegian researchers report that the sea ice is becoming significantly thinner and more vulnerable.

Last month, the annual thaw of the region's floating ice reached the lowest level since satellite monitoring began, more than 30 years ago.  It is thought the scale of the decline may even affect Europe's weather. The melt is set to continue for at least another week - the peak is usually reached in mid-September - while temperatures here remain above freezing.  'Unprecedented'

The Norwegian Polar Institute (NPI) is at the forefront of Arctic research and its international director, Kim Holmen, told the BBC that the speed of the melting was faster than expected.

"It is a greater change than we could even imagine 20 years ago, even 10 years ago," Dr Holmen said.
BBC Map "And it has taken us by surprise and we must adjust our understanding of the system and we must adjust our science and we must adjust our feelings for the nature around us."

The institute has been deploying its icebreaker, Lance, to research conditions between Svalbard and Greenland - the main route through which ice flows out of the Arctic Ocean.

During a visit to the port, one of the scientists involved, Dr Edmond Hansen, told me he was "amazed" at the size and speed of this year's melt.

"As a scientist, I know that this is unprecedented in at least as much as 1,500 years. It is truly amazing - it is a huge dramatic change in the system," Dr Hansen said.

"This is not some short-lived phenomenon - this is an ongoing trend. You lose more and more ice and it is accelerating - you can just look at the graphs, the observations, and you can see what's happening."  Thinner ice  I interviewed Dr Hansen while the Lance was docked at Norway's Arctic research station at Ny-Alesund on Svalbard.

Key data on the ice comes from satellites but also from measurements made by a range of different techniques - a mix of old and new technology harnessed to help answer the key environmental questions of our age.
The Norwegians send teams out on to the floating ice to drill holes into it and extract cores to determine the ice's origin.And since the early 90s they have installed specialist buoys, tethered to the seabed, which use sonar to provide a near-constant stream of data about the ice above.

An electro-magnetic device known as an EM-Bird has also been flown, suspended beneath a helicopter, in long sweeps over the ice. The torpedo-shaped instrument gathers data about the difference between the level of the seawater beneath the ice and the surface of the ice itself.

By flying transects over the ice, a picture of its thickness emerges. The latest data is still being processed but one of the institute's sea ice specialists, Dr Sebastian Gerland, said that though conditions vary year by year a pattern is clear.

"In the region where we work we can see a general trend to thinner ice - in the Fram Strait and at some coastal stations."

Where the ice vanishes entirely, the surface loses its usual highly reflective whiteness - which sends most solar radiation back into space - and is replaced by darker waters instead which absorb more heat.

According to Dr Gerland, additional warming can take place even if ice remains in a far thinner state.

"It means there is more light penetrating through the ice - that depends to a high degree on the snow cover but once it has melted the light can get through," Dr Gerland said.

"If the ice is thinner there is more light penetrating and that light can heat the water."

The most cautious forecasts say that the Arctic might become ice-free in the summer by the 2080s or 2090s. But recently many estimates for that scenario have been brought forward.

Early research investigating the implications suggests that a massive reduction in sea ice is likely to have an impact on the path of the jet stream, the high-altitude wind that guides weather systems, including storms.

The course and speed of the jet stream is governed by the difference in temperature between the Tropics and the Arctic, so a change on the scale being observed now could be felt across Europe and beyond.  Alan Thorpe of the European Weather Centre explains the link between melting ice in the Arctic and the UK's poor summer. Kim Holmen of the NPI explained how the connection might work.

"When the Arctic is ice free, it is not white any more and it will absorb more sunlight and that change will influence wind systems and where the precipitation comes.
"For northern Europe it could mean much more precipitation, while southern Europe will become drier so there are large scale shifts across the entire continent." That assessment is mirrored by work at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting, based in the British town of Reading. The centre's director-general, Alan Thorpe, said the link between the Arctic melt and European weather was complicated but it is now the subject of research.

"Where Arctic sea ice is reducing in summer - and if we have warmer than average sea surface temperatures in the north-west Atlantic - these twin factors together lead to storms being steered over the UK in summer which is not the normal situation and leads to our poorer summers."

But the research is in its earliest stages. For science, the Arctic itself is hard to decipher. The effects of its rapid melt are even tougher.

PNN STORIES

8. Cesium-laden fish may point to ocean hot spots
By MIZUHO AOKI
Staff writer

A record-high 25,800 becquerels per kilogram of radioactive cesium has been detected in fish caught within 20 km of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, according to Tokyo Electric Power Co., indicating there may be hot spots under the sea that need further investigation.

News photo
Fishy business: Record-high levels of radioactive cesium were found in these two "ainame" greenlings caught Aug. 1 off the coast of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. KYODO/TEPCO

That level is 258 times the government limit for safe consumption. The cesium was found in two "ainame" (greenlings) caught Aug. 1 at a depth of 15 meters, Tepco said Tuesday. It was the most cesium found among seafood samples so far.

A person could get a dose of 0.08 millisieverts by eating 200 grams of the greenlings, Tepco said. A cumulative dose of 100 millisieverts increases the risk of dying from cancer by 0.5 percent.
Greenling are bottom fish that live around rock reefs in coastal waters.

Tepco said it will check further for contamination of greenling and sea creatures that bottom fish feed on, including crabs and prawns.

The utility will also examine soil from the nearby seabed to try to ascertain the reason behind the extremely high contamination level, spokesman Junichi Matsumoto said, adding, "One possible reason is that there is some kind of hot spot (on the sea floor and the contamination in the fish) got this high by eating crabs and prawns that live there."

Overall contamination levels in fish near the surface and at medium depths have been declining, the Fisheries Agency said.

However, relatively high levels of radioactive cesium continue to be detected in bottom fish, such as greenling and flounder, and in fresh water fish regardless of their usual depth, an agency official said.

The Fukushima Prefectural Federation of Fisheries Cooperative Associations resumed sales in June of two types of octopus — "mizu-dako" and "yanagi-dako" — and a shellfish called "shiraitomaki-bai."

In general, cesium accumulates far less in octopus, squid and shellfish than in ocean fish and none has been found in samples the cooperative collected.

PNN STORIES

9. New Zealand Grants a River the Rights of Personhood
Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/new-zealand-grants-a-river-the-rights-of-personhood.html#ixzz25zhPFpfw

Written by Stephen Messenger
From the dawn of history, and in cultures throughout the world, humans have been prone to imbue Earth’s life-giving rivers with qualities of life itself — a fitting tribute, no doubt, to the wellsprings upon which our past (and present) civilizations so heavily rely. But while modern thought has come to regard these essential waterways more clinically over the centuries, that might all be changing once again.
Meet the Whanganui. You might call it a river, but in the eyes of the law, it has the standings of a person. In a landmark case for the Rights of Nature, officials in New Zealand recently granted the Whanganui, the nation’s third-longest river, with legal personhood “in the same way a company is, which will give it rights and interests”. The decision follows a long court battle for the river’s personhood initiated by the Whanganui River iwi, an indigenous community with strong cultural ties to the waterway.

Under the settlement, the river is regarded as a protected entity, under an arrangement in which representatives from both the iwi and the national government will serve as legal custodians towards the Whanganui’s best interests.

“Today’s agreement which recognises the status of the river as Te Awa Tupua (an integrated, living whole) and the inextricable relationship of iwi with the river is a major step towards the resolution of the historical grievances of Whanganui iwi and is important nationally,” says New Zealand’s Minister for Treaty for Waitangi Negotiations, Christopher Finlayson.

“Whanganui Iwi also recognise the value others place on the river and wanted to ensure that all stakeholders and the river community as a whole are actively engaged in developing the long-term future of the river and ensuring its wellbeing,” says Finlayson.
Although this is likely the first time a single river has been granted such a distinction under the law, chances are it’s not the last.

In 2008, Ecuador passed similar ruling giving its forests, lakes, and waterways rights on par with humans in order to ensure their protection from harmful practices.
And, while it may seem an odd extension of rights, in many ways it harkens back to a time when mankind’s fate was more readily acknowledged as being intertwined with that of the rivers, lakes, and streams that sustained us — a time in which our purer instincts towards preserving nature needn’t be dictated by legislation.
This post was originally published by TreeHugger.

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/new-zealand-grants-a-river-the-rights-of-personhood.html#ixzz25zhU1TjE

PNN STORIES

10. The Bolivian government has proposed a ground-breaking new law that would grant all of nature equal rights to those of the human race.

Earlier this year, Bolivia passed its own la Ley de Derechos de la Madre Tierra, or “Law of Mother Earth,” as part of a complete restructuring of the Bolivian legal system following a change of constitution in 2009.

The Law of Mother Earth is the world’s first piece of legislation to grant the planet absolute protection against those who would seek to exploit or destroy its resources or ecosystems.

The new law establishes 11 new rights for nature. They include:

    the right to life and to exist;
    the right to continue vital cycles and processes free from human alteration; the right to pure water and clean air;
    the right to balance;
    the right not to be polluted;
    and the right to not have cellular structure modified or genetically altered.
The Guardian reports that the law has been heavily influenced by a resurgent indigenous Andean spiritual world view which places the environment and the earth deity known as the Pachamama at the centre of all life. Humans are considered equal to all other entities.

The Law of Mother Earth redefines Bolivia’s tin, silver, gold and other raw mineral deposits as “blessings” and seek to protect the planet from “mega-infrastructure and development projects that affect the balance of ecosystems and the local inhabitant communities.”

“It is not clear at this stage how the somewhat abstract legislation would be implemented,” writes Olivia Solon for Wired. The state will need to be careful to balance the rights of nature with the regulation of industries (such as mining) that contribute a significant chunk of the country’s GDP.

Now, Bolivia is seeking to bring these principles worldwide with a United Nations treaty. The treaty, in draft at this time, would give Mother Earth the same rights as humans, including rights to life, water and clean air, the right to repair livelihoods affected by human activities, and the right to be free from pollution (SlashGear).

Critics of the law and its potential to inspire a treaty for UN nations say that it’s nothing more than an attempt by Bolivia’s socialist President Morales to “eradicate capitalism” and to force wealthy industrialized countries to “pay their environmental debt.”

Personally, I think that if the mega-corporations get to hide behind the legal protections of “personhood” as they pillage and pollute the planet, it’s only fair that she should be able to stand and defend herself with the same inalienable rights.

There could be no better Earth Day gift.

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/bolivian-law-grants-nature-equal-rights-with-humans.html#ixzz25zhmF0eD

PNN STORIES
11. How Your Movements Are Being Tracked, Probably Without Your Knowledge
License plate readers are getting set up at a brisk pace across the country.
August 31, 2012 
 |n May, Utah lawmakers were surprised to learn that the US Drug Enforcement Agency had worked out a plan with local sheriffs to pack the state's main interstate highway, I-15, with Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs) that could track any vehicle passing through. At a hearing of the Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Interim Committee, the ACLU of Utah and committee members aired their concerns, asking such questions as: Why store the travel histories of law-abiding Utah residents in a federal database in Virginia? What about residents who don't want anyone to know they drive to Nevada to gamble? Wouldn't drug traffickers catch on and just start taking a different highway? (That's the case, according to local reports.)

The plan ended up getting shelved, but that did not present a huge problem for the DEA because as it turns out, large stretches of highway in Texas and California already use the readers.

So do towns all over America. Last week Ars Technica reported that the tiny town of Tiburon in Northern California is using tag reader cameras to monitor the comings and goings of everyone that visits. Despite the Utah legislature's stand against the DEA, local law enforcement uses them all over the place anyway, according to the Salt Lake City Tribune. Big cities, like Washington, DC and New York, are riddled with ALPRs.

According to the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, ALPRs have become so pervasive in America that they constitute a "covert national surveillance grid."

The civil liberties group has mapped the spread of ALPRs, and contends on its Web site that, "Silently, but constantly, the government is now watching, recording your everyday travels and storing years of your activities in massive data warehouses that can be quickly 'mined' to find out when and where you have been, whom you’ve visited, meetings you’ve attended, and activities you’ve taken part in."
The group not only tracks the spread of the cameras but gives people the tools to contest their installation, or at least bring it up with their representatives. They're also pushing Congress to initiate hearings "to determine just how vast and intrusive the network has become." (The ACLU has also sent requests to local law enforcement throughout the country to determine just how many places use the technology and how.)

AlterNet spoke with Carl Messineo, legal director of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, about the spread of ALPRs, why the technology is becoming increasingly centralized, and what you can do to have a say in their proliferation.

Tana Ganeva: What exactly are ALPRs and what do they look like?

Carl Messineo: Tag readers are cameras that can be stationary, mounted on poles or traffic signals. Also they can be put on cruisers and vehicles. They can also be hidden.  Their function is to take images of passing vehicles, and they have an extraordinary capacity technologically to be able to do so, and to use optical character recognition to identify the license plate number.

The images may include optionally images of the occupants, the driver and passengers, as well. It takes that data, along with the GPS location of the vehicle, the date, the time, etc., and then stores it, matches up the data, and can send it to a centralized data warehousing center where they can log, historically, the movement of your own vehicle as it has passed through and silently triggered any one of the many thousands of tag readers that over the past few years have been put in place without very much public discussion or debate.

A lot of what we do is personal. We don’t want the government to know if we were outside the doctor’s office. Here in Washington, DC you drive into work, and based on where they have located these tag readers, unquestionably your movements are being not only monitored, but then transmitted to a massive database so they can look back years from now and find out what your travels have been.

TG: Where are they? Cities and towns and everywhere at this point?
CM: Yes. In fact, the federal government has, over the past number of years, embarked on a campaign to use federal funds to either subsidize or to give money for tag readers ostensibly for law enforcement purposes all across the country. In Utah, they were presented in much of the same way that the government and law enforcement presents these surveillance technologies; they roll them out as an innocuous way to take a snapshot of passing vehicles and compare them to a stolen vehicle list. Well, yeah, that’s part of what it does, but then in Utah they came to understand that that was only a fraction of the functionality of the tag readers that were being offered to them for free.  And they expressed shock that the government was actually intending to take a historical record of all the cars that passed through on their interstate and send it off to a data warehouse, which is physically located in Northern Virginia, in Merrifield.            

TG: Right. Because the data warehouse in Virginia would be really concerned about stolen cars in Utah, right?
CM: Well, exactly. And you know, one of the great concerns, or a number of important elements here -- there are virtually no real hard restrictions on the retention of this data, or on the use of the data.

And when you aggregate it, the real risk to privacy, the greatest risk to privacy comes through both the historic accumulation of data so that it’s not just a snapshot, but actually a history.
But also, when you aggregate it and cross-reference it with other information such as a person’s credit card transactions, what they purchased, when they purchased and why, you can really create a comprehensive profile of a person’s activities, their associations, even really a personality profile on them. Imagine, they know more about you than you probably know about yourself when they take into consideration your movements, your purchases as reflected in card databases, your credit card transactions, each of which record the time, location, nature of your transactions. And that and your cell phone data, well, what’s left?

TG: It’s interesting, I hadn’t realized that some of them have the capacity to even take snapshots of passengers. They could show sort of associations and, you know, who is in your car and when.
CM: Exactly, of course. And ultimately all of this technology will converge into any type of video recording device. I mean, you can use video and it doesn’t have to be a license plate reader and use scanning software and determine who a person is, and also the license plate scanning. But at this moment in time, they’re heavily reliant upon proprietary corporate purchased cameras.
TG: So I assume that there’s an element here, too, where there's a big corporate role in the deployment of these products. Probably a lot of companies pushing their wares on law enforcement, as well. Is that something you’ve noticed?

CM: In New York City, with the Domain Awareness Program, what they’re trying to do is replicate for all of New York what now exists in London, which is that you cannot move anywhere without being scanned, recorded, recognized. They have a massive technological ring. So New York City has partnered with Microsoft in this mass surveillance technology where they intend to jointly promote the use and the export of the technology being used in New York City across the country with a third of any profits going to Microsoft. It’s part of a private, public, corporate, industrial surveillance complex.

TG: Now, how would a program like Domain Awareness work with the ALPR networks? Are there conflicts, or are they converging? How does that work? Is this all shared information?
CM: Over the past 15 years, the great technological obstacle, which has now been overcome, has been the lack of uniformity in data storage. That is to say that different systems made by different vendors held data in different ways -- much in the same way that originally Macs and Windows systems were not really compatible, but now you can run Mac software on a Windows machine and vice versa. One of the big technological challenges and goals of the government over the past 15 years has been to overcome this lack of uniformity in data storage, and they have overcome it so that the data from different manufactures can now all be combined and shared, and the issue about sharing is very substantial. So when they put this data into a warehouse, a data warehouse, who has access to it?

Documents that were secured by EPIC, the privacy non-profit, recently revealed that actually there is an arrangement whereby the customs license plate reader data is now being given or shared with private corporations like the insurance industry.

 So, wondering whether every law enforcement entity has access to this is sort of a moot point when actually they have no problem providing this information to private corporations.
TG: How did that happen? What would their justification be for giving insurance companies this stuff?

CM: There’s always a justification. That’s just it. Justifications are easy to come by. The justification here is that it has a benefit to the insurance companies who themselves are trying to weed out fraudulent insurance claims, where people claim their car was stolen, but voluntarily taking it across the border to sell it, for example. You know? So what.  That’s not their information to have.
Nor is it the government’s. When you aggregate this information and know, for example, who has been parked near an abortion clinic, who has attended a political organizing meeting, and for an individual, what are the chain of activities that you have engaged in? That information does not belong to the government. That is just a clear violation, an intrusion of personal privacy.
You ask, “How does this happen?” Well, it happens because they have been able to silently, quietly fund the technology. And the key to technology is that it is not physically intrusive, right? So you, I, everyone has actually had our vehicles and our movements recorded hundreds, thousands of times, and never felt it.

So it can happen silently, and that’s what they’re counting on. They’re counting on making this surveillance system a fait accompli, and then they acknowledge it after the facts are on the ground, so to speak, when it’s going to be very difficult to undo, when it is entrenched.

That’s what they’re counting on. But they’re also deeply, deeply concerned about public backlash and political response. And, in fact, there is language in the privacy report on license plate reader technology that’s put out by the International Association of Chiefs of Police, who acknowledge that the ability to roll out this technology is going to be limited by the public’s willingness to tolerate it. And so they are looking for ways to present it so that it does not create a political response.
TG: One issue that I think has come up in surveillance efforts, particularly in Afghanistan and Iraq, but in the US too, is that when they have so much information, human beings can’t really analyze it efficiently. So they’re getting these mountains and mountains of data, it’s just increasing more and more. What use is it if it’s so much that it’s hard to analyze? Are they improving on that front, as well?

CM: I think that what is clear is that certain things have changed technologically. The storage space, hard drive space has become massively, massively cheaper so that the capacity to store data on a massive, extraordinary scale has become achievable, affordable, and feasible so that they are able to, in fact, now gather all of this movement data, and keep it. And the ability to search the data and mine it.
So they don’t actually need to process every piece of data. What they need to do is be able to store and access every piece of data, which they do have, so that when there is, for example, a targeted group, and that may be the Muslim community, that may be anti-globalization activists, it may be the Occupy Movement, it may be individuals, they have the ability then to on an as-needed basis go back and identify who was at this organizing meeting, who was at the mosque.

And then from there branch out and determine the associations and activities of each of those persons. It’s just sitting there and available. It’s what John Poindexter called “Total information awareness."

TG: Right. So this ALPR technology was originally used in war zones. How did it make it to America?

CM: Well, that is actually not an unfamiliar transition. It is not unusual for tools of political and social control. In this case, the license plate reader technology came out from the UK and Ireland. That’s where it was developed. And then there was a corporate interest, on part of the military industrial complex, to give it a life span, to give it a reason to continue to generate profit for the corporations which market and traffic in this technology. And so then they create, and sell, and present along with, you know, people who are aligned with them, within the government, they create reasons and explanations for why this should be deployed here domestically.
There is always a pretext, there is always an explanation.  There is always some boogie man to turn to, a threat of violence. All of the counterintelligence program disruption activities of the Civil Rights and anti-war movements of the 1960s and 1970 period, early ‘70s were justified by the government as necessary to prevent acts of violence, and to further law enforcement.  So that’s what they do here.  They say, “Look, this can help prevent acts of violence. If we knew this, we could prevent a terrorist attack  If we knew this, we could prevent lawlessness, we could track stolen vehicles.” There are a lot of pretexts for it.

But ultimately, when you look at the design of these systems, the systems are really massive intelligence networks. A lot of these uses do not require the massive retention and data warehousing that municipalities in the federal government are engaged in. If you look to identify whether a vehicle that just passed a tag reader, for example, is a stolen vehicle, they can send in an alert and have an officer pull it over.  You don’t need to capture and record every single vehicle’s license plates and possibly the photos of the occupants, and then move that into a data warehouse for archiving purposes.  That’s not necessary.

TG: Can you talk a little bit about your project?
CM: Our project, which is located at www.BigBrotherAmerica.org, is a project of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund. It's about tag readers, but it's also about the nation being under surveillance. It is about the confluence of technologies to create an unprecedented threat to privacy. And what we want to do is ... this is a democratic project.  It’s not a top-down project so much as one that engages the public to take control, because a lot of these technologies are being rolled out in a way that requires the cooperation of local municipalities, it requires the District of Columbia government to be willing to put up tag readers all around the district. It requires the sheriffs in Utah to be willing and to be cooperative to put up the tag readers along the interstates that they have jurisdiction over, and there has been success in some areas, limited areas, where people have politically stopped these massive surveillance technologies from being deployed.
New Hampshire, which, of course, has a strong history of independence and protection of civil liberties, has passed a statute prohibiting this type of mass surveillance technology deployment.
There are steps that people can take at BigBrotherAmerica.org. They can send letters to the Representatives in Congress and demand federal oversight hearings to force disclosure from the executive branch agencies, from the FBI, from the DEA, from ICE, of basic information, like just how big is this network? Have the officials come forward to testify under oath what data they are accumulating, how long they are storing it. What are the restrictions on use so that there is disclosure, and with disclosure of course comes logical restriction.
We can also use this same process locally to say, you should enact a law, or that it, in fact, is the law, as it very well may be that it’s unlawful to implement, to roll out mass surveillance technology without there being public notice debate disclosure so that people locally can make a decision about just how they want their county or their city to be. This is life-altering technology. And, of course, as part of our campaign, we provide people with resources and tools, posters, we have  graphics and compelling images that people can use to create signs and posters.
And also with respect to the tag reader use, what we are doing is we’re asking people across the country to identify the locations of the tag readers in their jurisdiction, that they may know of either by personal observation or by local news disclosures, and to submit that information to what is a clearinghouse here at the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, and we have a growing national map, an interactive map of tag reader locations across the country. And people already, since the launch of the campaign a couple weeks ago, have begun to send us additional information about even small localities that we were unaware were utilizing it.
TG: Do you have anything that you wanted to add that we didn’t discuss?
CM: I would say that on a meta level, what the government counts on is this perception of inevitability, that somehow advances in technology inevitably mean the loss of privacy, and that simply is not the reality. Advances in technology can be incredibly useful. We all benefit from advances and technology, and yes, advances in technologies are inevitable. That is what happens.  But the application of technology does not necessarily need to be intrusive. We control technology, we as human beings create technology. There is nothing about technology that makes it an independent breathing being. It is simply a tool and society determines what are the appropriate uses and limitations on use.
So part of the public education campaign is for people to come to understand that not only do we control the technology, but we have the right to restrict it.  That’s what happened with the eavesdropping technology, for example, and wire-tapping technology when it became evident that that technology had developed, then people took actions to restrict its uses. And here we’re at the cusp. We’re really at a turning point. We’re at a turning point because the technology has advanced so radically and rapidly in the past number of decades that if we don’t take action to make the baseline that that mass surveillance technology is something that is allowed to be used only with the consent of the public, if ever.
That’s the baseline. That’s what people should understand, that’s what legislators should understand, and they should put in policies, practices and procedures that reflect that, that say it is prohibited to implement any mass surveillance technology until we have oversight hearings, until there is a public discussion and debate, and an informed citizenry can weigh in and say, you know, that’s just not right. That changes the way our culture is and we reject it.

PNN Show Notes 8/26/12

PNN   - 8/26

RWS                           7:00pm  - 7:10pm
Dr De Luca               7:10pm – 7:30pm
Trish Sheldon           7:31pm – 7:45pm
Matt Keating            7:46pm – 7:58pm
Gayle Faath              8:00pm – 8:15pm
Ray Seamans            8:16pm – 8:45pm
Meredith Ockman   8:46pm – 9:00pm

======================

Today we celebrate Women's Equality Day! 
92 years ago today, women in the United States were granted the right to vote, when the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was certified. Thanks to those women who struggled before us to provide us with this right and set forth a positive path for our future.

     •    Planned Parenthood's Big Pink Bus Rally at UCF: Set for August 28th, from 4-6pm, Planned Parenthood Action Fund's (PPAF) Big Pink Bus will be touring the nation and making a stop in Orlando, FL! The bus will be parked at UCF's Recreation & Wellness Center and will attract supporters from across the region. We have an excellent speaker line-up for the rally and will lead a volunteers out to canvas afterwards! If you are driving to the rally and do not have a UCF decal, the cost to park will be $5. Garage B will be the best garage to park in. Rain may interfere with this event, so stay tuned for updates from me and the PPAF team!

    •    Planned Parenthood's Rally in Tampa: Many of you have also signed up to join PPAF in Tampa for the Women are Watching Rally being held at the RNC Convention on Wednesday, August 29th! This is an incredibly exciting trip and is free to all attendees! We will be leaving Orlando at 12pm and should hopefully return by 6pm. The bus pick-up location from Orlando will be the UCF bus stations between Garage A and Garage I. Guests to the campus may park in either parking garage with the purchase of a $5 parking decal. Since it is going to be a long day, we would encourage everyone to bring snacks!

Peace Rally in Tampa - [PNN Listen Anytime]
Vigil for Peace - Tampa... as IVAW, VFP, MSFO and Code Pink!
Date: Wednesday August 29th, 2012
Time: 11AM - 12:30 PM --  for the lunchtime crowd!

Location:
CROSSTOWN MOBIL
3699 W GANDY BLVD
TAMPA, FL 33611

Ample parking available at the Publix/Target parking lot on Gandy. Vigil for Peace is on the corner of Dale Mabry Hwy and Gandy Blvd  just two kilometers North of the main gate of MacDill USAFB, the headquarters of US Central Command and US Special "Black" Operations.

August 30th
WAR vs HUMAN NEEDS - 6 p.m. Bring-a-Dish,  Eat, Socialize
7 p.m. - Legislative work for peace and human needs, Community Education on National Priorities, Discussions,
January session with Judith LeBlanc, national Peace Action Field  Coordinator, your initiatives.
At Benders in Deerfield Beach.
Please (re)confirm your attendance, preferably the end of the prior week, August 24.
If you’re bringing a dish (for 5?)– what is it? 
Will send out details – menu  and directions,  Monday, Aug 27.
MUST HAVE LIST OF ATTENDEES FOR ENTRANCE TO GATED COMMUNITY.

Democracy Now!
If you live in Sarasota, Florida, we invited you to join Amy Goodman and Democracy Now! for a special event to benefit WSLR 96.5-LPFM on Friday, August 31 at 12pm! Please share this event with friends and family you know in the area!

"Walk for Children of Syria"
Saturday September 8, 2012 (5:00 - 7:00 pm)
Bay-front Park - Downtown Miami (Torch of Freedom)
301 N. Biscayne Blvd. Miami, FL 33122

National call in day September 24
Call Assistant U.S. Attorney Barry Jonas at 312-353-5300 x 68027
Tell him to "End the investigation of anti-war and international solidarity activists."

SCPA Progressive Fest, Communities in Action
Sunday, Oct. 21, 2012 from 11:00 to 5:00 pm
Eau Gallie Civic Center
1551 Highland Avenue, Melbourne

Live Sundays at 7PM or - [PNN Listen Anytime]
==========================================
http://tampa.nlg.org/wiki/doku.php

1. Facebook craazee
The former Marine who was detained in connection with Facebook posts critical of the government is being held in a psychiatric ward, Peter Bacqué of the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports.

"I'm currently in John Randolph in the psychiatric ward being held against my will," Brandon Raub, 26, said in a telephone interview with the Times-Dispatch. "They were concerned about me calling for the arrest of government officials."
Raub accused the government of lying about 9/11 and spoke of "starting a Revolution."
Lawyers from The Rutherford Institute represented Brandon Raub during the three-hour hearing today at the John Randolph Medical Center and released a statement, saying Raub has been sentenced to "up to 30 days’ further confinement in a VA psych ward" after "government officials again pointed to Raub’s Facebook posts as the sole reason for their concern and for his continued incarceration."

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/former-marine-brandon-raub-is-being-held-in-a-psychiatric-ward-over-facebook-posts-about-911-2012-8#ixzz248xZsXI0

According to Raub's mother, authorities from the FBI, Secret Service and Chesterfield County PD came to their door on Thursday evening, questioned Raub about his Facebook posts, then handcuffed him and placed him in a Chesterfield PD squad car before taking him to John Randolph Psychiatric Hospital in Hopewell, Va.
Both the FBI and Secret Service said Raub was not arrested or charged, but the Rutherford Institute statement points out that "if the police have put handcuffs on you and you’re being held against your will, that qualifies as an arrest."
When asked about why Raub was placed in a psychiatric ward, FBI Richmond spokeswoman told us that the FBI "had nothing to do with that" and that the FBI typically doesn't "make determinations such as that."
"We went out to interview him because of complaints that our office had received about people coming across his posts and perceiving them as threatening so our office along with Chesterfield County Police Department on Thursday," Rybiski told us. "When we left we had not arrested him, we had not placed our hands on him, we did not detain him and we did not charge him."
Secret Service spokesman Brian Leary said: "The Secret Service assisted the FBI with the interview. He was not arrested by the Secret Service. The Secret Service will continue to monitor the situation. We have no further comment at this time."
The Chesterfield PD – who had previously said the situation "was an FBI matter and we were just there to assist them" – released this statement (emphasis ours):
Chesterfield Police assisted federal authorities in their efforts to interview Brandon J. Raub on Thursday, Aug. 16. After speaking to Raub, officers believed him to be in need of further evaluation.
Chesterfield officers at the scene contacted Chesterfield Mental Health Crisis Intervention. Crisis workers recommended that police take Raub into custody and bring him in for evaluation.
Chesterfield police took Raub into custody for evaluation in accordance with Virginia State Code § 37.2-808 Emergency custody.
Raub was placed in handcuffs after he resisted officers’ attempts to take him into custody.
Raub was evaluated by a Chesterfield mental health official, who determined that he should be held under a temporary [detention] order and transported to John Randolph Medical Center for additional evaluation.
Raub was not arrested and he faces no criminal charges in Chesterfield.
The Virginia statute states that a mental health professional can decide to issue a temporary detention order if "it appears ... that the person (i) has a mental illness and that there exists a substantial likelihood that, as a result of mental illness, the person will, in the near future, (a) cause serious physical harm to himself or others as evidenced by recent behavior causing, attempting, or threatening harm and other relevant information, if any, or (b) suffer serious harm due to his lack of capacity to protect himself from harm or to provide for his basic human needs, (ii) is in need of hospitalization or treatment, and (iii) is unwilling to volunteer or incapable of volunteering for hospitalization or treatment."
It should be noted that the authority on whether or not Raub displayed signs of mental illness lies with the trained Chesterfield mental health official or officials who evaluated him in person.
"I really love America, and I think that idea that you can be detained and sent somewhere without due process and a lawyer … is crazy," Raub said.
Raub said he served as a Marine in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2005 to 2011, was a combat engineer sergeant and does not own a gun. His mother said he returned from Afghanistan about a year ago and does not have PTSD or violent tendencies.
Raub wrote five articles about economics and the Richmond Liberty Movement for the website Don't Tread On Me and his Linked-In profile says he owns a small coin business through the Numis Network.
John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute, said the following: “For government officials to not only arrest Brandon Raub for doing nothing more than exercising his First Amendment rights but to actually force him to undergo psychological evaluations and detain him against his will goes against every constitutional principle this country was founded upon. This should be a wake-up call to Americans that the police state is here.”

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/former-marine-brandon-raub-is-being-held-in-a-psychiatric-ward-over-facebook-posts-about-911-2012-8#ixzz248xkGj6W


Live Sundays at 7PM or - [PNN Listen Anytime]

Ex-Marine ‘Detained’ For Facebook Posts [Updated]

First the establishment started going after current serving military men for their outspoken political views on Facebook and other web venues, men like Marine Sergeant Gary Stein.  Now, it seems the government is going after veterans as well.  This is the classic pattern of a burgeoning totalitarian state; attack a small group first (outspoken serving military) which the public ignores because it affects them little personally, then slowly expand out to eventually include everyone else.  To all those insipid bottom feeders out there who refused to defend Gary Stein's right to free speech, here is what you have wrought.  Because of your ignorance, the government has been able to set a social precedent which they now plan to apply to a whole new group of people, starting with former Marine Brandon Raub.  The common statist slave will give the typical coward's response, which would sound a little something like this:
"...When are people going to learn that Facebook isn't private?  You would have to be stupid to express such views where everyone can see..."

"They didn't arrest him, they just 'detained' him..."

"He's former military and should be 'ashamed' of his comments against the government., blah blah blah, etc..."

The bottom line is, the 1st Amendment is NOT conditional.  ALL speech must be protected, no matter who you are, or where you happen to be speaking.  Just because our current criminal government decides 1st Amendment protections do not apply to Facebook does not mean they have the authority to make such distinctions.  In fact, the Constitution explicitly outlines how they are restricted from making such distinctions.  If a government entity, ANY government entity, attempts to violate Constitutional restrictions, it must be removed by any means necessary.

Take note that the FBI used the accusation of "terrorist threats" by Brandon Raub as an excuse for the arrest even though there is no indication that any actual threats were present on his Facebook page..
(Brandon's comments included observations that 9-11 was done by the government (even going to such length, and an interestingly detailed thesis, of providing evidence to augment this), the War on Terror is a lie, Americans are killing innocent people in the ME, the current federal banking system is corrupt and unfeasible to Americans, and that the George Bush's family rapes little children)
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/august192012/marine-fakcebook-arrest-t.php
I would say that all of these claims have enough circumstantial evidence behind them to warrant a serious independent investigation, and even if they didn't, there is no law against "conspiracy theory", at least not yet...
The police and FBI also failed to read Raub his Miranda Rights. Could this be one of the first public instances of the enforcement of NDAA detainment provisions against a U.S. citizen as a so called "domestic terrorist"?  You know, those detainment provisions that Neo-Cons and Neo-Libs alike claim "don't exist"?
My question for the statist slaves is, how soon will it be before they get to you?  Do you really believe your complacency and apathy will save you?  Has that kind of philosophy saved any slave under any other tyranny of the past?  This is NOT a free country anymore, and if we do not act to defend each individual who suffers under the weight of bureaucratic oppression, then everyone will lose everything.  It is time to pick a side.

update Raub 8/24

Facebook-posting Marine veteran released from hospital 24 Aug 2012 The shifting fortunes of Marine veteran Brandon J. Raub moved in his favor Thursday after a Hopewell judge criticized his forced relocation to a veterans hospital in western Virginia for mental treatment and then ordered him released. Hopewell Circuit Judge W. Allan Sharrett found that a document ordering Raub's transfer this week from a Hopewell hospital to the Salem VA Medical Center was faulty and "so devoid of any factual allegations that it could not be reasonably expected to give rise to a case or controversy." Raub, 26, was released from the Salem hospital shortly after 5 p.m.
Judge orders release of US Marine detained for Facebook posts --They detained him without charge and admitted him to a local hospital for 'evaluation.' 23 Aug 2012 On the basis that there was zero reason to detain a retired Marine and commit him to a medical facility for psychiatric evaluation, a Virginia judge has demanded that Brandon Raub be released from custody immediately. Raub, 26, had his home visited one week earlier by FBI, Secret Service and local law enforcement agents who expressed concern over a series of Facebook posts he had made on his public social networking profile.
Facebook posts land Marine vet in psychiatric ward 20 Aug 2012 US police reportedly detained a Marine Corps veteran in a mental hospital over Facebook posts, triggering outrage in the online community. Brandon J. Raub claimed the FBI was concerned about his "calling for the arrest of government officials." Raub, 26, is now being held in the John Randolph Behavioral Health psychiatric ward. Raub was confronted by FBI agents at his home on Thursday and taken away in handcuffs. He was then reportedly questioned over several incendiary Facebook posts he made. "They were concerned about me calling for the arrest of government officials," Raub said. [OMG! I call for same, like, daily! And, I'm not going to STOP asserting the FACT that 9/11 was an inside job, six ways to Sunday. --LRP]


3. Record radiation found off Japan
Record levels of radioactive caesium were detected in fish caught within 20km of Japan’s damaged Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, news reports said yesterday.
The operator Tokyo Electric Power Co said Tuesday it had found 25,800 becquerels per kilogram of radioactive caesium in greenling, 258 times higher than the government safety standard.
Fishing in waters off the plant has been voluntarily restricted since the nuclear disaster at the plant, which went into meltdown after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
Less than a month after the start of the disaster, Tokyo Electric dumped more than 11,000 tons of wastewater containing radioactive substances into the Pacific.
The previous record of radioactive contamination in fish was 18,700 becquerels per kilogram detected in cherry salmon caught in March, according to the Fisheries Agency.
Wakao Hanaoka, a Greenpeace Japan official, said the government now needs to carry out a full investigation of radioactive contamination in a wide range of sea areas off Fukushima, which has not been done yet.
The organisation’s surveys show higher levels of radioactive contamination were found in fish and seaweed sampled in areas further from the Fukushima plant.
Factors that affect the spread of contamination include ocean currents and seabed configuration, Hanaoka added. DPA

4. More GM Food Data
Southern California remains the proverbial battlefield for GMO labeling, an increased interest is growing over ways to actually start avoiding GMOs in your daily life. By far the best tip, which may not be applicable at all times, is to stick to high quality organic sources. Preferably 100% organic or locally grown by organic-based farmers. This certainly is not always an option, so I've compiled a quick 'cheat sheet' of the top genetically modified crops and substances that you can remember when avoiding GMOs in your daily life.
Produce items like yellow squash and papaya are considered by many worldwide to be health foods, however chances are that these food items among about 8 others I will be discussing today are heavily modified. Keep in mind that Monsanto is continually on a mission to dominate virtually 100% of the food supply, having already conquered upwards of 90% conservatively of staple crops like soybeans and corn.
A number of non-organic food products actually do exist that are free of GMOs, but it is important to learn the deceptive marketing tricks used by fake 'health conscious' brands who wish only to trick you into purchasing their GMO-laden garbage. As it was revealed back in October of 2011, many 'eco-friendly' brands are actually sporting the presence of GMOs within their products. Even products that have a "Non-GMO" label on their package! That's right, it's vitally important that the Non-GMO product sticker states that it is "verified" by the Non-GMO project or another source. Otherwise, it has been found to be a worthless claim.
Is it any wonder then that many of these 'eco-friendly' and 'natural' producers like Kashi have actually dished out millions of dollars to fight against GMO labeling in California? It becomes increasingly more clear which companies simply do not care about your health when you examine who owns them at the highest level. Kashi, for example is owned by Kellogg. You can actually view the chart on our site that shows which mega corporations own many phony 'natural' entities.
Top List for Avoiding GMOs
Outside of avoiding these companies and doing your best to purchase organic produce that starts with the number 9 on the PLU code sticker (the sticker on fruits and vegetables), here are 10 foods that are the most likely to contain GMOs that you should avoid when not consuming an organic source:
    1.    Corn
    2.    Soy
    3.    Sugar
    4.    Papayas
    5.    Aspartame (yes, aspartame is genetically modified!
    6.    Canola  
 7. Zucchini
 8.    Yellow squash
 9.     Dairy (more than 1/3 of non-organic dairy products in the United States still contain Monsanto's genetically engineered hormone known as rBGH. Made from cloned DNA, the hormone is currently banned in over 27 countries).
10.Cotton (in the form of cotton oil).

Until proper legislation is enacted to label or ban GMOs entirely, it's important to protect yourself and your family on a daily basis from the effects of genetically altered food staples.



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5. Tampa Authorities Empty Jail In Anticipation of Mass Arrests at GOP Convention

Thousands of Republicans from around the country will descend upon Tampa, Florida next week for the Republican National Convention, and if recent history is any guide, so too will hundreds of protesters.

To prepare, Hillsborough County Sheriff David Gee has ordered the Orient Road Jail, a 1,700 bed prison in Tampa, emptied, relocating some inmates to another nearby prison and releasing others on bond. The entire facility has been transformed into a one-stop booking, detention, and bond-issuance center capable of handling large numbers of arrests, which begs the question: will Tampa police keep demonstrators on a short leash?

Sheriff Gee says no, but also indicated in a letter posted on a county website that his department would have very little tolerance for anything more than chanting and holding up signs:

    To the agitators and anarchists who want only to bring a dark cloud to this event, let me be clear: criminal activity and civil disturbances will not be tolerated and enforcement actions will be swift.

Four years ago, police in Minneapolis, Minnesota were criticized for their treatment of protesters and reporters covering the RNC, and were even forced to settle in an excessive force lawsuit. And in 2004, police in New York City were found to have been surveilling dozens of protest groups for months leading up to the RNC, even embedding undercover officers within several larger groups.

6. A poetic treatment - of the Adkins Axiom
you can get pregnant in a car
you can get pregnant in a bar
you can get pregnant on a hill
you can get pregnant on the pill

you can get pregnant near or far
it doesn't matter who you are

you can get pregnant  in a house
you can get pregnant by a louse

you can get pregnant here or there
you can get pregnant anywhere
in a plane or on a train
in a box or with a fox

standing up or sitting down
it matters not when sperms around

you can get pregnant if your raped
science truths you can't escape

I do not like the awful lies
that hurt the ones whom it implies
can control their conception
through "legitimate rape" sperm detection

You should not lead our sacred land
if anti-science is your plan
I do not like what you are saying
I do not like it, Mr. Akin
(Christy Caine)

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7. The Pursuit of Julian Assange Is an Assault on Freedom and a Mockery of Journalism
The British government's threat to invade the Ecuadorean Embassy in London and seize Julian Assange is of historic significance. David Cameron, the former PR man to a television industry huckster and arms salesman to sheikdoms, is well placed to dishonor international conventions that have protected Britons in places of upheaval. Just as Tony Blair's invasion of Iraq led directly to the acts of terrorism in London on 7 July 2005, so Cameron and Foreign Secretary William Hague have compromised the safety of British representatives across the world.

Threatening to abuse a law designed to expel murderers from foreign embassies, while defaming an innocent man as an "alleged criminal," Hague has made a laughing stock of Britain across the world, though this view is mostly suppressed in Britain. The same brave newspapers and broadcasters that have supported Britain's part in epic bloody crimes, from the genocide in Indonesia to the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, now attack the "human rights record" of Ecuador, whose real crime is to stand up to the bullies in London and Washington.

It is as if the Olympics happy-clappery has been subverted overnight by a revealing display of colonial thuggery. Witness the British army officer-cum-BBC reporter Mark Urban "interviewing" a braying Sir Christopher Meyer, Blair's former apologist in Washington, outside the Ecuadorean embassy, the pair of them erupting with Blimpish indignation that the unclubbable Assange and the uncowed Rafael Correa should expose the Western system of rapacious power. Similar affront is vivid in the pages of The Guardian UK, which has counseled Hague to be "patient" and that storming the embassy would be "more trouble than it is worth." Assange was not a political refugee, The Guardian UK declared, because "neither Sweden nor the UK would in any case deport someone who might face torture or the death penalty."

The irresponsibility of this statement matches The Guardian UK's perfidious role in the whole Assange affair. The paper knows full well that documents released by WikiLeaks indicate that Sweden has consistently submitted to pressure from the United States in matters of civil rights. In December 2001, the Swedish government abruptly revoked the political refugee status of two Egyptians, Ahmed Agiza and Mohammedel-Zari, who were handed to a CIA kidnap squad at Stockholm airport and "rendered" to Egypt, where they were tortured. An investigation by the Swedish ombudsman for justice found that the government had "seriously violated" the two men's human rights. In a 2009 US embassy cable obtained by WikiLeaks, entitled "WikiLeaks puts neutrality in the Dustbin of History," the Swedish elite's vaunted reputation for neutrality is exposed as a sham. Another US cable reveals that "the extent of [Sweden's military and intelligence] cooperation [with NATO] is not widely known" and unless kept secret "would open the government to domestic criticism."

The Swedish foreign minister, Carl Bildt, played a notorious leading role in George W. Bush's Committee for the Liberation of Iraq and retains close ties to the Republican Party's extreme right. According to the former Swedish Director of public prosecutions Sven-Erik Alhem, Sweden's decision to seek the extradition of Assange on allegations of sexual misconduct is "unreasonable and unprofessional, as well as unfair and disproportionate." Having offered himself for questioning, Assange was given permission to leave Sweden for London where, again, he offered to be questioned. In May, in a final appeal judgment on the extradition, Britain's Supreme Court introduced more farce by referring to nonexistent "charges."

Accompanying this has been a vituperative personal campaign against Assange. Much of it has emanated from The Guardian UK, which, like a spurned lover, has turned on its besieged former source, having hugely profited from WikiLeaks' disclosures. With not a penny going to Assange or WikiLeaks, a Guardian UK book has led to a lucrative Hollywood movie deal. The authors, David Leigh and Luke Harding, gratuitously abuse Assange as a "damaged personality" and "callous." They also reveal the secret password he had given the paper in confidence, which was designed to protect a digital file containing the US embassy cables. On 20 August, Harding was outside the Ecuadorean embassy, gloating on his blog, "Scotland Yard may get the last laugh." It is ironic, if entirely appropriate, that a Guardian UK editorial putting the paper's latest boot into Assange bears an uncanny likeness to the Murdoch press' predictable augmented bigotry on the same subject. How the glory of Leveson, Hackgate and honorable, independent journalism doth fade.

His tormentors make the point of Assange's persecution. Charged with no crime, he is not a fugitive from justice. Swedish case documents, including the text messages of the women involved, demonstrate to any fair-minded person the absurdity of the sex allegations - allegations almost entirely promptly dismissed by the senior prosecutor in Stockholm, Eva Finne, before the intervention of a politician, Claes Borgstr. At the pre-trial of Bradley Manning, a US Army investigator confirmed that the FBI was secretly targeting the "founders, owners or managers of WikiLeaks" for espionage.

Four years ago, a barely noticed Pentagon document, leaked by WikiLeaks, described how WikiLeaks and Assange would be destroyed with a smear campaign leading to "criminal prosecution." On 18 August, the Sydney Morning Herald disclosed, in a Freedom of Information release of official files, that the Australian government had repeatedly received confirmation that the US was conducting an "unprecedented" pursuit of Assange and had raised no objections. Among Ecuador's reasons for granting asylum is Assange's abandonment "by the state of which he is a citizen." In 2010, an investigation by the Australian Federal Police found that Assange and WikiLeaks had committed no crime. His persecution is an assault on us all and on freedom.

8. GOP Approves ‘Most Conservative Platform In Modern History’
A week from the 2012 Republican National Convention, Republican committee members spent Tuesday articulating and affirming the principles they stand for in a draft of the official party platform. Led by Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-VA) and featuring other Tea Party stars like Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach and Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), the committee approved a draft of the platform McDonnell said “will reflect the heart and soul of the Republican Party” and one committee member called “the most conservative platform in modern history.”

    •    NO ABORTION IN CASES OF RAPE OR INCEST. The proposal for a “human life amendment” passed without a hitch — and without any exceptions for rape or incest. The committee didn’t stop there; they also adopted language that would ban drugs that end pregnancy after conception, which could potentially include Plan B, the “morning after pill.”
    •    SALUTE TO MANDATORY ULTRASOUNDS. The GOP officially praises states’ “informed consent” laws that force women to undergo unnecessary procedures, require waiting periods and endure other measures meant to discourage them from getting an abortion. One such law receiving a “salute” was crafted by committee head McDonnell, who passed a notorious mandatory ultrasound requirement after he signed an unsuccessful bill to require an even more invasive transvaginal probe ultrasound during an abortion consultation.
    •    NO LEGAL RECOGNITION OF SAME-SEX COUPLES. The committee embraced extreme anti-gay language, even rejecting a proposal to endorse civil unions for gay couples after vehement objections from Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council and Romney adviser Jim Bopp, who called it a “counterfeit marriage.” The rejection of civil unions, along with the refusal to include a line affirming the legal equality of same-sex couples prompted the organization GOProud to declare, “Those who have engaged in this public platform fight have provided distraction from important issues and damaged Mitt Romney’s campaign.”
    •    REPLICATE ARIZONA-STYLE IMMIGRATION LAWS. Kris Kobach, who wrote the now mostly invalidated immigration laws in Arizona and Alabama, pushed for language calling for a border fence, a national E-Verify system to make it harder for undocumented workers to find employment, the end of in-state tuition for illegal immigrants and an end to sanctuary cities. The committee overwhelmingly approved the proposals, as well as a line chastising the Department of Justice to halt the lawsuits against draconian immigration laws in Arizona, Alabama, South Carolina and Utah: “State efforts to reduce illegal immigration must be encouraged, not attacked.”
    •    AUDIT THE FED. The pet project of Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) to audit the Federal Reserve has now been embraced as an official Republican goal. For the first time, the platform calls for an annual audit of the Federal Reserve.
    •    NO WOMEN IN COMBAT. The platform condemns “social experimentation” in the military, which covers everything from the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” to allowing officers to wear their uniforms in gay pride events to letting women serve on the front lines.
    •    NO STATEHOOD, MORE GUNS FOR WASHINGTON DC. FRC’s Perkins, who recently blamed President Obama and the Southern Poverty Law Center for the shooting at FRC’s Washington headquarters, requested and received a section specifically urging the DC Council to expand gun rights. The same section also opposes DC statehood, which would allow the District to govern itself and put an end to Congressional attempts to impose abortion bans on DC.
    •    NO NEW TAXES, EXCEPT FOR WAR. The platform calls for a Constitutional amendment requiring a super-majority to approve any tax increase, “with exceptions for only war and national emergencies.” It would also deliberately hobble future Congresses through a cap limiting all government spending to historical average percentage of GDP — “so that future Congresses cannot balance the budget by raising taxes.”



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9. citizen execs spend big on travel
The public hearing had grown heated. Board members of Citizens Property Insurance were pushing a controversial plan that would force hundreds of thousands of Florida homeowners to pay more for less coverage.
"It's not that we're unsympathetic to the people that might be adversely affected by this," board chairman Carlos Lacasa sought to assure the gathering in Tampa.
That feel-your-pain moment came April 26, just three weeks after Lacasa and two Citizens executives returned from a business trip to London. Total tab: nearly $9,200, including two nights in a boutique hotel and a $234.91 dinner for three at an award-winning French restaurant.
It is just one example of how executives at the state-run company have been living large at the same time they are asking hard-pressed Florida property owners to pay more for insurance.
A Times/Herald review of hundreds of expense reports filed over the past three years shows that Citizens executives spent lavishly on themselves even as they pleaded poverty and raised rates by unprecedented amounts.
Traveling executives often stayed in luxury hotels costing as much as $600 a night even when less expensive accommodations were available nearby.
Free of spending caps imposed on rank-and-file employees, executives dined at swank restaurants and repeatedly spent more than $50 per person on such fare as rack of venison, sea bass and Dungeness crab.
Citizens spent tens of thousands of dollars on travel just in Florida, including trips to board meetings held in four-star hotels.
Citizens' chief financial officer broke company rules at least five times by using corporate credit cards to pay for alcoholic beverages and personal expenses.
***
The governing board for Florida's state-backed Citizens Property Insurance Corp. will consider proposals to more than triple insurance rates for sinkhole coverage in some areas next year and boost premiums for new policyholders, drawing criticism from homeowners associations.
Homeowners in some parts of the state could see significant increases in high risk areas if the sinkhole rate hike is approved, jumping premiums from $1,382 to $4,179 a year on average in Pasco County. By comparison, Alachua County would only see a small increase from $55 to $62 a year. The insurer had a net loss of $968 million in sinkhole claims between 2007 and 2011.
Citizens also said it needs a 15.2 percent increase for homeowners policies statewide and new residents, but will only ask for 7.5 percent because of the 10 percent cap currently in place. A Citizens spokeswoman said she thought the board would consider capping the rate and gradually phasing in the increase.


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