WE ALL KNOW that among us walk the credulous. But credulity is one thing, lunacy another. 5th District supervisor, Dan Hamburg, a former Congressman, has crossed the line. He thinks 9-11 was an inside job although there is not a shred of credible evidence to so much as suggest 9-11 was anything but what it obviously was — a conspiracy mounted by medieval Muslims to kill a lot of Americans on American soil. Italian filmmaker Massimo Mazzucco’s “September 11 and the New Pearl Harbor,” is a five-hour long repackaging of all the alleged problems with the official version of events surrounding the Twin Towers collapse on September 11, 2001.
Supervisor Hamburg recently made this statement on the MCN Listserve:
“I’m on record re 9/11. ‘The New Pearl Harbor’ by Massimo Mazzucco, merely provides further confirmation that 9/11 was a shameless and unspeakably evil hoax perpetrated on the American people and the world. Perhaps most interesting in the Mazzucco documentary is the technical information that explains why the two hijacked planes couldn’t have been flown into the WTC buildings at the speed they were traveling. Turns out that when a plane is flying near the ground it must drastically reduce speed or it starts to come apart because of increased air resistance. The planes that hit those buildings were replacements. Quotes from aeronautical engineers at Boeing seal the deal here. Part of the horror of this scam is that they offloaded passengers and forced them to “call home” on their cell phones and read prepared statements. That’s how we got the fiction behind “Let’s roll”. (Latest ‘Loose Change’ [an earlier conspiracy film] reports that Cleveland Airport was evacuated that morning due to ‘terrorist threats’ and that the news media reported that Flight 93 landed there and offloaded passengers to a cleared building.) At the end of one of the recorded cellphone calls (which, you recall, could not have been made from the hijacked plane’s reported altitude), a flight attendant whispers ‘it’s a frame.’ The cabal didn’t notice this. The financial report is devastating. Turns out part of the motive was 220 billion in bogus Russian bonds. Web savvy people have written several articles about YouTube suddenly zeroing out viewing statistics on controversial 911 videos. And the one on ‘911 & Operation Northwoods’ has just plain old disappeared. Dan”
SO, THE HIJACKED victims are what? Hidden away somewhere? Were they allowed to call home then herded back on board the hijacked planes to die in the collision with the Twin Towers? Can anyone possibly believe this evil nonsense? Well, yes, our 5th District Supervisor.
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A SKELETON IN SNEAKERS: ONE YEAR AFTER
by Kym Kemp (Courtesy, LostCoastOutpost.com)
On the eve of the eve of Halloween (October 29th, 2012) just one year ago, a local man and his daughter kayaked to their favorite mushrooming spot on the Eel River just south of the Humboldt County line. As his daughter played, the man noticed something odd. For years there had been the pale crescent of one sneaker tip protruding up from the ground in this area but the man and his family had ignored it. Unfortunately, trash is not a rare occurrence by the riverside. This time though, the man uneasily noted the presence of a second sneaker tip slightly lower than the first but lined up with it as though someone were laying under the soil. The idea of a body being buried there crawled up his spine and chilled him.
Using a stick, the man began excavating the shoes. Mostly, he was convinced he was just removing some trash but a part of him worried… A worry that solidified into a dark truth as he dug out a shoe with a sock still in it full of bones.
His wife described the situation in a story from the LoCO last year.
“When my husband pulled the shoe out,” explained the wife who prefers the family remain anonymous, “he thought it had roots grown into it and had to really pull. At that point the foot came off the leg-bone…” The husband dumped out the shoe discovering both a sock and foot bones. “…[He] was just freaked out and full of disbelief. He was focused on the bones in the shoe, the sock, could they really be from a skeleton. There was still dirt in the hole around.” This hid the leg-bone from his sight. He and his wife discovered that fact when they returned later.
Once he found the bones, they were put in an empty bag he had with him,” explained the wife. “…When I went back with him to confirm [around dusk], we brought a little shovel and dug out a little more until we could see the [leg-bone]. It was only a round little end…but it was obviously a bone leading up the leg …[and we] could see there was a leg-bone going up inside what looked like denim pants. That is what confirmed to us we really were seeing a human body and it was time to call the police about it.”
First, the couple tried to reconstruct the scene a bit for a photo to show what they had seen to the police. “We placed the sneaker back in place to take that first picture. I turned it sideways to show the type of sneaker to take the second one [see below],” described the wife.
Shoes in original position, pants
After spending a restless night, early on the day before Halloween, the wife phoned law enforcement. “I called in to the sheriff switchboard at 6:59 but they never called back and only showed up a few hours later. He seemed suspicious that it might be a Halloween joke….first thing we did was give him the bones….and show him the pictures. He totally believed us at that point…”
The body was excavated, removed, examined, and catalogued.
The clothing items found were a t-shirt, pants and, of course, the shoes. There was also a pocketknife found.
The shirt says, “Before I started working here, I drank, smoked, and used foul language for no reason at all. Thanks to this job, I now have a reason”
Later, in March of this year, the Mendocino Sheriff’s Office put out a press release:
On 03-11-2013 Sheriff’s Detectives received a report from the CSU-Chico Human Identification Laboratory in regards to the analysis of the human remains found on 10-30-2012 in Piercy, California.
The results of the analysis showed that the human remains are believed to be that of a white male adult, approximately 25-45 years of age with a height between 5 feet 11 inches and 6 feet 5 inches tall.
Sheriff’s Detectives have enlisted the assistance of the California Department of Justice in recovering DNA from a bone to help establish a DNA profile for the remains.
Sheriff’s Detectives hope to enter this DNA profile into the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) and use the DNA profile to compare against Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office active missing persons cases.
As of publishing time, LoCO hasn’t heard back from the Mendocino Sheriff’s Office as to the latest information but we understand that DNA analysis is still being completed and the remains have yet to be identified.
Previously:
Body Found Near Piercy by Local Family
Skeleton in Sneakers Excavated on Halloween Day
Skeleton in Sneakers Belonged to Tall, White Man
Clothing Items on the Skeleton Found at Halloween
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UKIAH’S ONLY HOMELESS SHELTER, the Buddy Eller Center, has lost a big hunk of federal funding because, according to Tiffany Revelle’s story in today’s Ukiah Daily Journal, the shelter “no longer provides services for those with mental illnesses, making Ukiah’s shelter less competitive in a world where it needed more of an edge — not less of one — to vie nationally for a shrinking pot of federal dollars.”
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JUST IN FROM THE CAFFREY CAMPAIGN
Happy Halloween — Please appreciate the fact that one month has elapsed in my participation with the Caffrey for Congress campaign headquartered in Garberville, CA. Somehow, we survived, and a couple from Salt Lake City has arrived, one of whom is now campaign manager, while his partner is working in the local Chinese restaurant. Today, I received my new CalFresh card for Humboldt county, and my intake interview with social services is Friday. Otherwise, I am sleeping on the campaign office floor downstairs, cooking for us all upstairs in Andy’s appartment, and attending weekly gatherings in the downstairs space, where videos are being shown in regard to global climate destabilization, anti-GMO, and pro-legalization of marijuana topics. And then occasionally, when the crowd is smaller, we break out the beer and rock videos! At least this political campaign to represent District 2 in California is honest, on point, and has a spiritual basis. Meanwhile, I am open to new opportunity, and ale rt all that I am still willing to return to Washington D.C. for intense spiritual direct action; if this interests you, I now ask you to contact me…let’s get me set up in the district with suitable housing, and then let us respond effectively to the stupidity in the national capital. If not now, when? If not us, who? What the fuck are we waiting for? Call me at 707-923-2114, Craig Louis Stehr
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WANGDOODLE BLUES
by Bruce McEwen
“Did the defendant ejaculate?”
“He said he didn’t. He said it was his first time masturbating in public, and he became nervous and was unable to ejaculate.”
Cory Rupp, 20, of Ukiah, was on trial for lewd and lascivious acts in public, specifically whacking off in broad daylight in the driveway of Julia Carrera’s home in Ukiah.
(Mendo pot people will remember Ms. Carrera as the County’s third-party marijuana inspector under Mendo’s now-defunct marijuana permit program.)
Ms. Carrera’s friend, Alyra Slocum, a well-known Ukiah singer-songwriter, had arrived at Ms. Carrera’s home, noting that Mr. Whackoffski was, uh, pleasuring himself virtually in Ms. Carrera’s front yard. The two women locked themselves in the house where they quickly decided to call the police to report a young man pacing up and down the sidewalk, whacking away, perhaps having been further aroused, nay transported, by the arrival of the comely Ms. Slocum.
“He must have had a lot of practice, to be able to do it while walking down the street,” Ms. Carrera would testify. “Alyra arrived and I said, ‘Get in here,’ and I pulled her into the house and locked the door.”
She had a point. Mobile masturbation would seem to be fairly rare. If the kid had also been chewing gum we’d have a real prodigy on our hands. [sic]
What did the pud-pulling pedestrian have to say in his defense: “I was off my meds.”
Charles Oshinuga from the Office of the Public Defender was assigned to Rupp’s case, and since he is the newest lawyer in the Public Defender’s stable, it seems reasonable to assume that none of the other public defenders were vying to defend the libidinous lad.
Oshinuga is also a very good basketball player, having won a 3-on-3 championship for UC Davis with two other law students in a statewide tournament at UCLA in 2011. Oshinuga’s boss, Linda Thompson, may have figured, “This case cries out for an athletic defense.”
The matter was heard as a bench trial (in front of a judge), as opposed to a jury trial. Oshinuga had only legalities to worry about, not the added burden of weeding out female jurors genetically predisposed to castration for male sex crimes.
The young attorney began his cross-examination of Ms. Carrera with a merry, “Good morning, Ms. Carrera! How ya doin’ today?”
“I’m creeped-out,” the vic bluntly replied.
Oshinuga cut to the chase.
“You don’t remember the specific time when you first saw Mr. Rupp in your driveway, isn’t that correct …what you told the officer?”
“It was daytime,” Ms. Carrera snapped, obviously still offended at the memory of unrestrained male sexuality in her driveway.
“Well,” Oshinuga persisted, “was it before noon, afternoon — what?”
“Before,” Carrera said.
“And you asked my client to leave?”
“Wull, yeah…” with an implied, “Duh. You don’t think I invited him in for coffee, do you?”
“Then you remained inside?”
“Of course I stayed inside — what do you think I was gonna do?”
Oshinuga ignored the “Well, duh” implications of Ms. Carrera’s replies. “So you were looking out the window?”
“Yeah.”
“And he was still in the driveway?”
“Not then.”
“You told the officer that he was still in the driveway. Did you see his penis?”
“Not all of it — he had it covered with his hand, going up and down.”
“And he was looking around aimlessly…?”
“No! I didn’t say ‘aimlessly’! He was looking at my house! He was across the street by then, and he was looking at my house — and jacking off!”
“Did my client, at any time, say anything?”
“He was jacking off in front of my house! Why would I care anything about what he had to say?”
“So you don’t recall my client saying anything. Did he make any gestures?”
“Gestures? Gestures? Why are you asking me about gestures? I don’t care about gestures!”
“So he didn’t make any gestures?”
“Gestures?”
“Gestures — Did he make any gestures?”
“What are you trying to do? He was jacking off”—
Just then the court reporter threw up her hands in frustration and said, “Stop! You are both talking over each other and I can’t keep up. I don’t even know where we are, now.”
Judge John Behnke admonished both lawyer and witness to slow down. (No one said to the court reporter, “I believe the last statement by the witness was ‘jacking off’.”)
Ms. Carrera had been flaring her nostrils and walling her eyes like an elk cornered by wolf. She was incredulous. It hadn’t even been lunch time and she’d had a major perv in her driveway waving his weenie and whinnying like a horse and now she’s in court and this Oshinuga guy is asking every dumb question imaginable.
On his part, Oshinuga — wisely, I think — hadn’t come anywhere near the witness stand, choosing instead to remain behind the defense table. But it was crucial that he ask these questions because the second, most damning element of the charge was whether or not his client was attempting to draw attention to himself — or had simply, all of an instant, become so overwhelmed with the splendors of Ukiah’s fall fecundity that he just had to contribute his seed to next year’s bounty.
In a world of misunderstanding there are always other possibilities.
Oshinuga resumed his interrogation of an increasingly hostile witness.
“So it is true that my client never spoke to you or made any gestures?”
“When you say ‘gestures’ I tend to think of, you know, flipping someone off, that kind of thing… So I’m not sure I know what you mean.”
“Fair enough. But he wasn’t pointing to himself, or anything like that was he?”
“How could he? He was too busy jacking off!”
“Is it true he never said anything?”
“Yeah, that’s true.”
“Is there a lawn?”
Again, Ms. Carrera reacted as though Oshinuga was deliberately trying her patience.
“What has that got to do with some jerk jacking off in my driveway? It’s the neighbor’s lawn, anyway. Why?”
“Is there a fence?”
“Huh? Are you serious? A fence? Yeah, sure. There’s a little ornamental picket fence, so what?”
“And a tree?”
Ms. Carrera was terminally exasperated.
“Okay, yeah, there’s a tree, and you know what? It wouldn’t have surprised me at this point if ‘your client’ had climbed the tree and hung from a branch by his tail, jacking off the whole time!”
“Was the tree between my client and the street?”
“Phew,” the witness exhaled, her lower lip jutting so that a few wisps of hair on her forehead wafted momentarily aloft. “Lemme think. Was he hiding behind the tree? I really don’t think so. He was across the street jacking off and looking at my house.”
“How far was that?”
“I dunno, maybe 30 feet…”
“Then how do you know he was looking at your house?”
“He was looking at my house!”
“You could see his eyes at that distance?”
“Yes!”
“Did he make eye contact with you?”
“He made eye contact with me!”
“Then what did he do?”
“He wiped his hand on his shirt and walked on down the street towards the golf course.”
“Nothing further. Thank you, Ms. Carrera.”
The DA’s sex crimes prosecutor is Heidi Larson. She has a pretty heavy docket, an unrelievedly sordid caseload it is, too, although you’d never know it because most people, even reporters, can’t sit through endless child abuse and rape cases without going vigilante. Ms. Larson prosecutes the worst creeps imaginable. She called the next witness, Alyra Slocum.
The fact that both the victim-witnesses were attractive women will do little to exonerate the wandering onanist, Corey Rupp. The fact that Ms. Slocum’s arrived on the scene when Mr. Rupp already had his passions in hand, so to speak, could, I suppose, in some wild stretch of indulgent speculation, be construed as understandable, because of her (Ms. Slocum’s) understated and yet undeniable charm. Where Ms. Carerra had, uh, aroused Mr. Rupp’s passions, the sight of Ms. Slocum pulling into Carerra’s driveway propelled Rupp into full-on dropped-pants ecstasy.
Ms. Larson doesn’t blush at the facts of life, no matter how bizarre. The prosecutor repeated the facts for the new witness, Ms. Slocum.
“On or about August 8th, sometime around 11 o’clock in the morning, you arrived at 801 Maple Avenue in your silver Jeep Liberty. Your friend, Ms. Carrera, rushed you inside, saying something to the effect that there was someone creepy out there, and you told the officers that you later saw him standing by your car… We know all this, but can you tell me what you saw the defendant doing?”
Ms. Slocum went red as the proverbial beet. She tried to speak, but her voice squeaked and cracked. She tried again. This time we heard a few strained words, to the effect: “I saw him standing by my car. He was touching himself. He wore a black hoody and dark pants, but, wull, his pants were down and his hands were on his private parts.”
Ms. Larson demanded full candor.
“Touching himself,” she recited contemptuously. “His hands on his private parts…[ha!]” The prosecutor paced a few steps in front of the witness, then stopped and rocked on her heels, her hands clasped behind her back. “Do you mean his penis?”
“Yes,” Slocum whispered, her eyes dropping demurely, her ears glowing dangerously near the temperature of combustion. Maidenly modesty in a time of universal decadence! It was, in a way, kinda life-affirming in a porn-drenched time.
Larson persisted.
“So you actually saw his penis?”
“Umhum,” the witness whimpered.
“Is that a ‘yes’?”
Ms. Slocum looked like she might bolt from the room.
“I couldn’t particularly see anything,” she stammered hurriedly. “And, honestly, I wasn’t trying to look at it. But it was just like really blatant.”
“How did you feel?”
“Ummm… uncomfortable, disturbed.”
“Nothing further.”
Public Defender Oshinuga whispered with his client, Mr. Grandly Inappropriate. At last the defender of the defenseless beamed his winning smile and introduced himself to the reluctant witness.
“How’d ye do, Ms. Slocum. Pleasant autumn day, isn’t it?”
“Ummhum.”
Well, it was a nice day until I arrived in this place where it’s all pervs and penises.
“When you first saw my client, how far away were you?”
“Maybe 25 feet.”
“Did he say anything?”
“No.”
“Did he make any gestures?”
“No.”
“So you were unsure whether he was looking towards you two ladies, weren’t you?”
“I couldn’t see well enough to tell if he was looking at the house.”
“Nothing further.”
Ms. Larson called Sergeant Cedric Crook of the Ukiah Police Department Crook had been the patrol sergeant that hot, libidinous August day. Crook, like all cops, is a PhD in aberrant behavior. He calmly recited his stark version of events.
“It was 9:50-something. Officer Schapmire had the suspect in custody and he [the suspect] first told me he had been ‘trying to go pee and was only shaking his penis’ when he got aroused by the presence of a female and started jacking off. He later admitted to pulling down his pants and jacking off. He said a female in a silver Jeep Liberty had arrived.”
“Did Mr. Rupp tell you whether or not he ejaculated?”
“He said he did not. He said he got nervous. He said he’d never done it before.”
“He said he’d never done what before?”
“He said he’d never jacked off in public before.”
“Did he admit he’d lied about having to urinate?”
“He did, yes.”
“That’s all I have,” Larson said.
Oshinuga asked the officer, “What time did you say it was when you arrived?”
“Around 10am.”
“So he would have been seen by the first female before that time?”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“Did he tell you where the first female went?”
“He said he wasn’t positive, but he thought she’d gone into the residence.”
“Isn’t it true that he said he wasn’t masturbating when he first saw the female exit the silver Jeep Liberty?”
“That’s when he first said he got aroused.”
“So, the masturbation could have occurred after the women had gone inside the residence?”
“It could have.”
“In your report you said he thought she saw him ‘jerking off.’ Now, were those his words or yours?”
“I don’t understand.”
“You said he said he thought she saw him jerking off, but did you say, ‘Did she see you jerking off’ and he said, ‘Yes’, or did he say he thought she saw him jerking off?”
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
“I mean, Did he just say ‘Yes’ to your questions or did he make the statements about his having thought she saw him jacking off?”
“I don’t recall.”
“So when you say he admitted he was aroused, that was in response to a question of yours?”
“I don’t remember whether it was something he said or a question of mine he answered.”
“So those are not words out of his mouth?”
“Most likely anything he said were his responses to my questions.”
“So you don’t know if he said he thought she saw him or merely said ‘yes’ to your question?”
“Correct. It could have been what he said or an answer to a question.”
“Nothing further.”
Ms. Larson called Officer Tyler Schapmire.
“Where were you on the morning of August 8th at about 10 o’clock?”
“I was dispatched to an address on Cypress Avenue.”
Larson suggested Officer Schapmire check his report. He did so and admitted his mistake, “I was dispatched to the 800 block of Maple Avenue.”
“You just had the wrong tree,” Judge Behnke quipped.
Schapmire blushed.
“What did you find on Maple Avenue, Officer Schapmire?”
“The defendant, Corey Rupp, with his pants down.”
“What did he tell you he was doing?”
“He said he’d been urinating and was just shaking it off. Then Sergeant Crook arrived and I went to talk to the two females. When I got back Sergeant Crook informed me that Rupp had admitted to masturbating. He said he lived on Cypress Avenue and had left the house after an argument with family members. He admitted that his penis was exposed and that he had been masturbating in public.”
“Did you ask him whether any of the females had seen him?”
“I don’t believe I clarified that with him.”
Oshinuga asked, “Did Ms. Carrera specify where she first saw my client?”
“She said she first saw him on the sidewalk by her driveway.”
“Did she say he was looking at her?”
“She never told me specifically that she saw him look at them.”
“Nothing further.”
“The People rest,” Larson said.
Oshinuga put his hapless client on the stand.
“How ya doin’?”
“Good.”
“Nervous?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you have a fight that day?”
“Yeah.”
“When?”
“About 3:30 in the morning.”
“What did you do?”
“I left the house and started walking.”
“Are you on any medications?”
“Yes. Welbutrin and Abilify.”
“Did you take ‘em that morning?”
“No, I didn’t get a chance to.”
“How long was it before you started masturbating?”
“About seven hours.”
“Did you see anyone?”
“No.”
“Did you hear anything?”
“Yes, a voice saying ‘What are you doing?’ and telling me to leave.”
“What did you do?”
“I left, then came back. The only person I saw was the one in the Jeep.”
“Nothing further.”
“Left and came back?” There may be stalking implications here, and public masturbation, like many ostensibly harmless sexual behaviors, can be the opening act to much more dire crimes.
Ms. Larson declined to cross.
Judge Behnke asked for closing arguments. Larson reserved hers.
Oshinuga summed up: “My position is that my client wasn’t directing any public attention to his genitals; he was behind a tree, so he couldn’t be seen from the street; and, secondly, he didn’t see anyone or do anything to draw attention to himself. When Ms. Carrera spoke to him he left. The second time she saw him he was 25 to 30 feet away, and Ms. Slocum said she was unsure whether he was looking at them or trying to draw attention to himself. So it is defense’s position that the second element of the charge hasn’t been proved.”
Ms. Larson told it from The People’s perspective: “The defendant admits to exposing himself in public and admits to masturbating. He admits to leaving and then returning to the area. There’s case law that asserts the other person doesn’t have to see his genitals to prove intent. In this case he was clearly aware that others were present — he was facing the house masturbating when he knew people were in it.”
Judge Behnke took a ten-minute recess to read some law. When he returned he said, “The defendant did expose his private parts in a public place, and in the purview of the statute — Ms. Carrera was in the area and told him to leave and when Ms. Slocum arrives, he returns and repeats the conduct — we have lewd conduct in their presence. It seems to me this is a situation where the defendant was acting with lewd intent, so I do find him guilty.”
Sentencing was set for November 25th.
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NOW IS THE TIME TO FILM AT FUKUSHIMA
by Harvey Wasserman
Where is Robert Stone?
We are in desperate need of documentary filmmakers at Fukushima.
The Japanese government is about to pass a national censorship law clearly meant to make it impossible to know what’s going on there.
Massive quantities of radioactive water have been flowing through the site since the 3/11/11 earthquake/tsunami.
At thousand flimsy tanks hold still more thousands of tons of radioactive water which would pour into the Pacific should they collapse.
An earthquake and two typhoons have have just hit there, flushing still more radioactive water into the sea.
The corrupt and incompetent Tokyo Electric Power Company will soon try moving 400 tons of supremely radioactive rods from a damaged Unit Four fuel pool, an operation that could easily end in global catastrophe. The rods contain 14,000 times as much radioactive cesium as was released at the bombing of Hiroshima.
Nobody knows the exact location of the melted cores from Units One, Two and Three or whether they are still fissioning.
Reuters and others report criminal involvement, slashed wages, inhuman working conditions, serious shortages and lack of training in what has become an extremely dangerous labor crisis.
Intensely radioactive hotspots have turned up throughout Japan, including some that threaten human life in Tokyo and make cast a pall on the upcoming Olympics.
At least one report indicates a massive dead zone in the Pacific apparently caused by radiation pouring in from the site. Tuna contaminated with radiation from Fukushima have been caught off the California coast, and there are widespread reports other marine life disappearing throughout the Pacific.
With the information flow from Fukushima apparently about to go dark, the presence of independent media and researchers has become more critical than ever.
Petitions with more than 140,000 signatures asking for a global takeover of the Fukushima site will be delivered to the United Nations November 7. The ask is for a transnational team of world’s best scientists and engineers to guarantee that all necessary resources are available to deal with this crisis.
Robert Stone has made a high budget dis-infomercial sponsored by Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen, whose cohort Bill Gates has bet heavily on new nukes. Called “Pandora’s Promise,” Stone’s promoters have refused to send us a review copy. We’re told it mocks industry opponents without actually interviewing them, while downplaying the killing power of atomic radiation. It’s scheduled to air on CNN without a balancing point of view.
A trip to Fukushima might change Stone’s mind. He’s worked in the past with Michael Moore, one of our greatest investigative documentarians. Using Michael’s aggressive techniques, we want him to bring back critical information that could make a difference.
At very least we desperately need to know more about the11,000 intensely radioactive fuel rods on site, the three missing reactor cores, the proposed bring-down of the Unit Four fuel rods, the potential for still more explosions, the labor crisis, the unending flow of potentially lethal radiation into the biosphere, and much more.
The fate of the Earth may now hang at the mercy of a widely distrusted corporation and far-right government intent on blacking out that site.
Dr. James Hanson, an important climate scientist, has expressed his support for atomic energy, and would make a fitting co-worker on this trip.
Along the way, Mr. Stone, you might check out Japan’s massive new offshore wind turbines whose promise is to replace all the reactors this disaster has forced shut.
But as a hired industry gun, you need above all to tell us what’s happening at Fukushima…before the lights go out.
Our future could well depend on how honestly you undertake this critical task. Please report back as soon as possible.
(Harvey Wasserman edits Nuke Free. He is author of Solartopia! Our Green-Powered Earth and hosts the “Solartopia Green Power & Wellness Show” at PM.)
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ANDERSON VALLY TRAIL PLANNING
Dear Anderson Valley Community Members and Organizations:
What is your vision for a bicycle and pedestrian trail through Anderson Valley?
Please help spread the word about the upcoming Valley Trail Planning Events November 12 & 14. (See the announcement below). *Share widely with your social networks, friends, neighbors, and with your community organizations.* By encouraging people to attend, you can help make sure the Valley Trail Plan is a community-based plan and that local voices are heard. If your organization would like to offer information about the trail or other community initiatives at the November 14 workshop, please contact me to make arrangements. I am the contact for workshop organizing. Looking Forward! Alison Alison Pernell Project Manager Local Government Commission http://www.lgc.org apernell@lgc.org
Help the Valley Trail project take the next step! Your input is needed at a series of community planning events November 12 and 14, to design a bicycle and pedestrian trail along the Highway 128 corridor. The corridor extends from the Sonoma/Mendocino County line near Cloverdale to the Highway 128/1 junction in Mendocino County, a distance of approximately 51 miles. Community input will help identify a range of improvements along the corridor. Help identify community preferences for trail design and alignment through the communities of Yorkville, Boonville, Philo and Navarro, as well as points in between. Everyone is invited and encouraged to participate and exchange ideas. All events will be offered in Spanish and English. Participate in a *Walking Assessment *of downtown Boonville on Tuesday, November 12 (3:30 – 5:00pm). Meet in front of the Boonville General Store, 14077 A Highway 128. During the walking assessment, participants will evaluate pedestrian and bicycle safety in downtown Boonville and discuss options for trail design. (Please wear comfortable shoes.) A free *Bus Tour* will be conducted Thursday, November 14 (10:45 am – 2:00 pm) to visit potential trail routes along the Highway 128 corridor. Meet at 10:45 am at the Anderson Valley Brewing Company, 17700 Highway 253, Boonville, to load the bus. Snacks will be provided; bring a bag lunch. This will be an opportunity to discuss trail alignment and to evaluate opportunities and constraints along the corridor. A *Community Workshop* will be conducted Thursday, November 14 (5:00 – 8:00 pm) at the Anderson Valley Fair Grounds Dining Hall, Boonville. Free food will be provided by Boont Berry Farm beginning at 5:00 pm. Following a presentation on trails, participants will have a chance to become “community designers” as they create and share their own designs for the trail. Last year, the Valley Trail Coalition worked with the Mendocino Council of Governments (MCOG) to successfully submit a grant application to Caltrans to fund a feasibility study and design for the trail. The community planning events, and the resulting study and designs are funded through Caltrans’ Community-Based Transportation Planning Grant funds, and a local match from MCOG. The community planning events are organized by the non-profit Local Government Commission, in coordination with Alta Planning and Design. For more information, visit www.valleytrail.org or www.mendocinocog.org/reports_projects-SR128Trail.htm.
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EEL RIVER RECOVERY PROJECT RETREAT and Volunteer Celebration Dinner November 10 – Beginnings in Briceland
The Eel River Recovery Project (ERRP) will hold its third annual retreat and its first Volunteer Celebration Dinner on Sunday, November 10 at the Beginnings Octagon in Briceland. The group was formed in 2011 due to citizen concern about toxic algae, loss of stream flow and diminishing water quality, and future survival of salmon runs. ERRP is about solving problems not advocacy and the action agenda for 2014 will be set at the meeting.
Those most actively involved in ERRP will meet at 9 AM over coffee and bagels for a business meeting and strategic planning session that will run through noon. The public is invited to come for lunch at noon and to attend following presentations about 2013 accomplishments and 2014 plans from 1-5 PM. UC Berkeley doctoral candidate Keith Bouma-Gregson will recap what was learned about toxic blue-green algae or cyanobacteria throughout the Eel River watershed. Education Coordinator Sal Steinberg is leading a Van Duzen River public school project in cooperation with the U.S. Forest Service that is teaching 500 students about the river and he show pictures and movies of activities. Jeff Hedin and Bruce Hillbach-Barger are co-leads for the ERRP Wilderness Committee and they will talk about clean up of large industrial marijuana grow this fall and the prospects for expanding Wilderness. Fish monitoring and water temperature/flow 2013 studies will be recapped by ERRP Volunteer Coordinator Pat Higgins.
The purpose of the presentations is to report findings and progress to the public, to explain how people can get involved in 2014 projects, and to scope the community as to whether there are other areas of need for ERRP attention. If there is an unaddressed problem and ideas for solutions, it could become part of the ERRP 2014 Action Plan that is the product that will come out of the retreat. The 2012 and 2013 Action Plans were similarly produced in retreat and are available on the ERRP website (www.eelriverrecovery.org).
A Volunteer Celebration Dinner will be held at the end of the day from 5 PM – 7 PM. The main course will be albacore with vegetarian options available and beer and wine will be available. The Beginnings Octagon is 5.8 miles west of Redway just off the Briceland-Thorn Road on Cemetery Road. Call 707 223-7200 to volunteer to help with the retreat or if you have questions or see our website or the ERRP Face Book page for further information.
Patrick Higgins
Eel River Recovery Project Volunteer Coordinator
791 Eighth Street, Suite A
Arcata, CA 95521
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ON FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1, John Sakowicz and “All About Money” returns to KZYX with a special edition show about JP Morgan’s $13 billion deal with the feds to settle the bank’s widespread mortgage fraud scandal that helped bring down Wall Street and the global economy seven years ago. Is $13 billion enough? Professor Bill Black is our guest. Black is an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. A former bank regulator who led investigations of the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s, He is the author of the book The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One . Black was also featured in Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story. This is Black’s third appearance on our show here at KZYX. We hope to also have Bob Scheer, editor at TruthDig.com, call into the show.
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WILLIAM K. BLACK is an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. A former bank regulator who led investigations of the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s, He is the author of the book The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One . He just wrote the piece ” Will the JPMorgan Chase Settlement be Fair to the Public? ” for CNN.com. The piece states: “If the reports of a proposed $13 billion settlement between the Justice Department and JPMorgan Chase & Co. are correct, the public and the company’s shareholders will not see justice done. “While the tentative deal is being portrayed as a larger settlement, it really represents the company coming forward with an additional $9 billion. The other $4 billion represents loan workouts that JPMorgan would do anyway to reduce its losses on mortgages that would otherwise cause it greater losses through foreclosure. … “A settlement of this kind would release JPMorgan and its officers from civil and criminal liability for a wide range of alleged frauds. Many of these alleged frauds added to the profits of JPMorgan and the companies it acquired. The shareholders should not be enriched by fraud. “Where officers’ frauds created profits that enriched the shareholders, JPMorgan should fire such officers, and the Justice Department should prosecute and recover any fraud proceeds. JPMorgan should pay the damages it caused to others through fraud. In cases where a firm’s senior officers engage in a wide range of frauds, the courts should award punitive damages against the officers and the firm. “The problem in terms of justice is when the frauds created fictional profits that enriched corporate officers through unjust bonuses but also created real losses that were booked by the company years later. The shareholders suffer twice from such frauds — they paid the unjust bonuses and then have to bear the losses.”
ROBERT SCHEER: Editor of TruthDig.com, Scheer just wrote the piece ” What Fine? Why JPMorgan Is Laughing All the Way to the Bank ,” which states: “The point of accountability for the bank’s failing is crucial because [JPMorgan head Jamie] Dimon has been a leading opponent of tougher banking regulations since before even the 2008 crisis. In the 1990s, Dimon had worked with Sanford I. Weill of Citigroup in gutting the sensible restraints of the Glass-Steagall law, and once those restrictions on too-big-to-fail banks were removed, Dimon built JPMorgan Chase into what is now the biggest U.S. financial institution by assets. Dimon has been an outspoken opponent of even minor attempts to stiffen such regulations during the hearings on the Dodd-Frank legislation. “Dimon denounced the tepid efforts of his old Chicago buddy-turned-president to bring a modicum of oversight to the financial industry and pointedly soured on the Democrats in the last election. This despite the fact that Obama had appointed former JPMorgan executive William Daley to be his chief of staff and that then-Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner had more frequent contact with Dimon than with any other financial industry executive.” Scheer’s books include The Great American Stickup: How Reagan Republicans and Clinton Democrats Enriched Wall Street While Mugging Main Street.