A Congressman Finally Demands More Information About Radioactivity from Fukushima

"HOORAY Congressman Markey !  Thank you.  Bless you.   Post this 6/1/2012 letter from Markey to the FDA anywhere you think it might do some good.  Personally, I'm writing a thank you note to this congressman from Massachusetts." - Judith Cosby

Well it's about f*cking time. -Sky Cosby

http://enenews.com/congressman-to-fda-unknown-how-radioactive-fallout-in-us-affected-marine-environment-wants-a-listing-of-all-instances-of-species-found-to-have-elevated-levels

Nations oldest black bookstore fighting back against Amazon

"At a very young age, we were expected to have opinions, to have veneration for elders and to be well read," said Johnson, 27, a UC Berkeley doctoral student who is among the third generation to help run Marcus Books, the nation's oldest African American bookstore.

So it came as no surprise in December when Johnson took a stand on behalf of small businesses nationwide by launching a petition against retail giant Amazon.com.

As part of a holiday shopping promotion, Amazon had offered customers a price break if they used a smart phone app to scan products' costs in brick-and-mortar stores and then bought them online instead. Although the promotion did not apply to books — Amazon said it was aimed at electronics sold in "major retail chain stores" — it infuriated booksellers long stressed by Internet competition.

Here are Jasmine Johnson's reasons for starting this petition:

I was so angry when I read about Amazon.com's Price Checker App promotion: the company actually paid shoppers to collect information on prices at local bricks-and-mortar shops and then shop at Amazon instead. In most places, Amazon doesn't pay any taxes and they don't contribute to local economies in nearly the same way that small businesses do.


In 1960 my grandparents opened Marcus Books, the nation's oldest independent African-American bookstore. Marcus Books is still here but it's a struggle. All around the country I see independent bookstores and other retailers fighting for survival in this tough economy. Amazon's Price Checker app goes beyond simple competition in a free marketplace. It represents an ugly race to the bottom that might provide short-term benefit for bargain hunters, but will lead to long-term pain for communities in the form of lost jobs and tax revenues.


If Amazon wants any credibility with consumers from here on out, they should pledge not to use these kinds of promotion techniques for the Price Checker app in the future and should apologize to small businesses.

Read and sign the petition here CEO, Amazon.com: Stop the "Price Check" assault on small businesses

Plan developed to clean up highly radioactive Hanford spill

 06 Feb 2012 Hanford officials have settled on a plan to clean up what may be the most highly radioactive spill at the nuclear reservation. It depends on calling back into service the 47-year-old, oversized hot cell where the spill occurred to protect workers from the radioactive cesium and strontium that leaked through the hot cell to the soil below. Radioactivity in the contaminated soil, which is about 1,000 feet from the Columbia River, has been measured at 8,900 rad per hour. Direct exposure for a few minutes would be fatal, according to Washington Closure.

New Concerns About Northwest Nuclear Waste Plant

11 Dec 2011 The federal government says a one-of-a-kind plant that will convert radioactive waste into a stable and storable substance that resembles glass will cost hundreds of millions of dollars more and may take longer to build, adding to a string of delays and skyrocketing price tag for the project. In addition, several workers at southeast Washington's Hanford nuclear reservation have raised concerns about the safety of the plant's design -- and complained they've been retaliated against for voicing their issues.

Come Visit Our Book Dome at the Okanogan/Tonasket Barter Faire

We'll be on the North end of one of the aisles, as usual. Look for the Pirate Flag!

Monsanto Will Soon Be Allowed To Police Itself

Monsanto, enemy of organic farmers and anti-GMO advocates alike, will likely be allowed to conduct its own environmental studies as part of a two-year USDA experiment. But there is no good that can possibly come of an experiment where the company behind nearly every genetically modified crop in our daily diets is allowed to decide whether its products are causing any environmental harm. And Monsanto isn't the only biotech company that will be permitted to police itself.

As it stands, the USDA is responsible for assessing environmental impacts of new GMO crops. The agency has been lax about this, to say the least. In 2005, the USDA gave Monsanto the go-ahead to unleash its sugar beets before preparing an Environmental Impact Statement. This decision eventually triggered a judge to rule that Monsanto sugar beet seedlings should be ripped from the ground.

Because the USDA is so bad at doing its job on time, the agency decided to see if anyone else was prepared to do its safety testing work instead. And so it looks like the USDA will at least temporarily hand over environmental impact reporting responsibilities to the biotech companies behind GMO crops. The pilot program will allow these companies to conduct their own environmental assessments of crops or outsource the work to contractors. The USDA will still get the final say in determining the safety of crops.

Read More

Let's Remember ALL Victims of September 11th

Thanks Mom, for forwarding John Desmond's letter to the editor, from the Walla Walla Union Bulletin.

On Sept. 11 the nation will commemorate the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attack on the United States.
We will remember and honor the victims of those attacks on New York City, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania,
and we will rightly honor all the heroes of that day, living and dead, and their surviving families and loved ones.

At the same time, we do well also to remember the other victims who have suffered, and continue to suffer, as a consequence of our response to the 9/11 attack. I refer specifically to the thousands of non-combatant Iraqi and Afghan citizens who have been killed or maimed as a result of our pre-emptive, illegal war and the thousands of Iraqi Christians who have been killed or driven from their homeland by our fundamentalist Sunni and Shiite "partners in democracy".

We do well also to remember the countless number of American and allied families whose lives have been forever shattered by the death or injury of our servicemen and women, and the alarming increase in suicides by our military personnel forced into repeated tours of duty in these wars.

All of these broader consequences are a result of actions done in our name, and for which we share responsibility.

The retaliatory actions were started and have been continued by two presidents (and Congress)--the current president who inherited the wars and seems unable to extricate us from them, and the former president, George W. Bush, who now enjoys a leisurely retirement and seems to sleep just as peacefully as he did when he was in the White House, starting wars.

John F. Desmond, Walla Walla, WA

$30M expansion for Walla Walla prison

Wish I had more for ya... but this is it so far... except for a few old plans from 2008...

By JOURNAL STAFF

August 2, 2011

TUMWATER — The state Department of Corrections later this month will open bids for a $28 million to $30 million expansion at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla.

Work will involve construction of two nearly identical housing units, each about 45,000 square feet with 256 beds. They will house medium-security inmates.

Top Ten Songs About Nuclear War

Thanks for the link, Ma! It's alright, I'm only bleeding.

America's Atomic Time Bomb: Hanford Nuclear Waste Still Poses Serious Risks

By Marc Pitzke in New York

The disaster at Fukushima has raised questions around the world about nuclear safety. But contamination is much worse in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. The former plutonium plant in Hanford, Washington is one of the most contaminated places on earth, and still decades from being cleaned up.

The lambs were born without eyes or mouths. Some had legs that had grotesquely grown together; others had no legs at all. Many were stillborn. Thirty-one were lost in a single night.

On a pasture nearby, a cow was found dead, stiff and with its hooves bizarrely stretched up into the whispering wind. Down by the river, men of the Yakama tribe pulled three-eyed salmon from the Columbia. Trout were covered in cancerous ulcers.
And then the babies started getting sick... More...

GO TO THE PUBLIC HEARING IN PORTLAND ON MAY 19th:

Event:	PUBLIC HEARING ON THE DRAFT ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT FOR THE DISPOSAL OF GREATER-THAN-CLASS C (GTCC) LOW-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTE AND GTCC-LIKE WASTE
Location:	Doubletree Hotel, 1000 NE Multnomah Street
City:	Portland, Oregon
Start:	5:30pm
End:	9:30pm
A public hearing on the GTCC draft EIS will be held in Portland, Oregon on May 19, 2011. Location: Doubletree Hotel 1000 NE Multnomah Street Portland, Oregon Date: May 19, 2011 Time: 5:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Contact: Arnold Edelman Document Manager Office of Technical and Regulatory Support (EM-43) U.S. Department of Energy 1000 Independence Avenue, S.W. Washington, DC 20585–0119 Phone: 301–903–5145 Fax: 301–903–7238 http://www.hanford.gov/pageAction.cfm/calendar?&IndEventID=9219&IndEventDate=2011-05-19%2017:30:00.0&cYear=2011-05-19%2017:30:00.0

Distraught Gulf Shrimper Arrested for Pouring Oil on Herself in Senate Energy Hearing

This lady is an author published by Chelsea Green, one of our favorite sustainable publishers.

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/52989
and here's the Common Dream's Article as well.
______________________________________________
Diane Wilson, a fourth generation shrimper from the Gulf, poured oil on herself at today’s Senate Energy Committee hearing to protest Senator Lisa Murkowski's refusal to make BP pay for the disaster that has been devastating Wilson's shrimping community. Republican Lisa Murkowski, ranking member of the Senate Energy Committee, blocked the bill that would have lifted the oil companies' liability cap (the Big Oil Bailout Prevention Act). Wilson was removed from the hearing and arrested.

Wilson traveled from Texas, where her livelihood and those of her fellow shrimpers has been ruined. She had this to say, “My name is Diane Wilson. I am a fourth generation shrimper from the Gulf. With this BP disaster, I am seeing the destruction of my community and I am outraged. I am also seeing elected representatives like Senator Lisa Murkowski blocking BP from being legally responsible to pay for this catastrophe. She stopped the Big Oil Bailout Prevention Act and wants to keep the liability cap at a pitiful $75 million. This is outrageous. How dare she side with big oil over the American people who have been so devastated by this manmade disaster.”

“We want people to call Senator Murkowski’s office and tell her to stop supporting big oil and support a healthy environment and American livelihoods instead," said CODEPINK co-founder Medea Benjamin, who was with Wilson at the hearing. "Our members from across the country have sent Murkowski thousands of emails already. We also want the Senator to call for Diane Wilson to be exonerated. BP CEO Tony Hayward should be in jail, not a distraught shrimper!”

Wilson has been working for decades fighting the polluting of the Gulf. She wrote the book An Unreasonable Woman: A True Story of Shrimpers, Politicos, Polluters, and the Fight for Seadrift, Texas detailing her years long fight against oil and chemical companies in her community. She went on to say, “I have seen the oil and chemical companies destroying our air, water, our wildlife--and the government going along with it. Politicians like Murkowski take campaign money from big oil and then get in bed with the same oil and chemical corporations. This must stop. Enough is enough.” The full text of Diane's statement is here

Wilson is also a co-founder of the organization CODEPINK Women for Peace. She was in front of BP HQ in Houston, Texas two weeks ago to protest the oilspill and draw attention to BP’s legacy of negligence. Read her most recent article, “The BP oil gusher is just the latest in a long line of assaults on the Gulf of Mexico” published on Grist.com.


Praise for An Unreasonable Woman: A True Story of Shrimpers, Politicos, Polluters, and the Fight for Seadrift, Texas

“A stunning achievement.”
—Molly Ivins

“...An Unreasonable Woman will stand as one of this nation's greatest works of nonfiction. I have never read a book quite like this one, and worry already that I might not yet again. This is one of the most powerful works of nonfiction I can remember reading in many years. In a cynical age, amidst such rampant loss and destruction, it's easy to regard Diane Wilson's book as simply a masterpiece, and to let it go at that. But we owe it more. This book inspires in us the courage to believe—to remember—we can still change the world.”
—Rick Bass