Bob Weingarten and Nancy O’Toole of Friends of the Boundary Mountains write in the July 10 Daily Bulldog:
The Maine Legislature created the Land Use Regulation Commission (LURC) in 1971 to serve the people of Maine and act as the authority over 10.4 million acres of unorganized lands, and one of the largest contiguous undeveloped areas in the Northeast. Among LURC’s responsibilities are the promotion of orderly development, and the protection of natural and ecological values.
In 1974, to ensure the protection of fragile and irreplaceable soil and habitat, Maine’s mountainous areas above 2,700 feet were given zoning protection from ecological-damaging development by LURC. That protection stood the test of time until January 2008 when LURC reversed the protection of our mountains.
Now, before us we have the biggest industrial project being approved, by LURC, which will change the western Maine mountains forever. A project so huge it’s difficult to sum up the total environmental impact, but let us provide a brief overview.
LURC is about to give final approval to TransCanada’s Kibby Wind Power Project based on a final design plan that doesn’t have final surveys, core testing completed, or hydrology mapping finished. (Which means add at least 20 percent to the following figures). There will be 47 intermittent and 38 perennial streams impacted by bridgeways and culverts that will divert streams up to 225 feet. For road building and towers, a total of 423.6 acres will permanently be impacted. Another 310 acres will be cleared and changed from forest and wetland to right-of-ways for transmission lines. The estimate for total road length is 30.5 miles, with widths ranging from 25 to 35 feet, and for 21.75 miles a 150-foot wide “right of way” for the kV line. A 60-foot “right-of-way” for the 34.5 kV buried collector system that runs from turbine to turbine, and then moves to overhead poles moving down the slopes and ridges to the substation. There will be new buildings, temporary batch plant that will be producing 700 yds3 of concrete per turbine pad, rock crushers, and at least 20 acres will be filled by the unused rock and dirt from blasting and road construction.
The project will impact many species of Maine. The northern bog lemming is among Maine’s rarest mammals and listed as threatened. The Atlantic Salmon and the Canadian Lynx is listed as endangered and its habitat will be impacted by this development. Five state-listed plants species have been identified in the project through the wetlands that will be impacted by the transmission lines. The accumulation downstream due to unforeseeable erosion from all these disturbances will greatly impact the fish and natural vegetation forever. Over time the culverts will fill with sediment, silt fences washed out and the environmental damage will accelerate in magnitude and increase in intensity. This doesn’t even include the hundreds of migratory birds, bats and raptors that will perish each year as a result of the 400-foot high turbines. ...
The Governor’s Task Force on Wind Power Development is promoting 2,000 MW by 2015 and 3,000 MW by 2020, by establishing an Expedited Review and Permitting Area in Maine, which includes at least one-third of LURC’s jurisdiction. In the unorganized areas a rezoning would not be required and the DEP will assume jurisdiction for permitting on any proposal that goes through an organized area; the expedited process should take only 185 days.
An Executive Order required LURC to draft a Commercial Industrial Development Subdistrict (D-CI) to streamline permitting and do away with rezoning hearings. In the draft there are two full pages of townships and plantations on the expedited wind energy development area. ...
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights
July 19, 2008
July 15, 2008
Not So Fast With Wind Power
An editorial:
Climate change, dwindling resources, and the geopolitics and ecology of fossil fuels and nuclear power figure prominently in today's worries. As part of any solution, most people unhesitatingly include large-scale wind energy. Wind power companies promise to break our dependence on other fuels and to reduce our emissions of greenhouse gases and other pollutants. Teaming up with the American Wind Energy Association, the U.S. Department of Energy has promoted providing 20 percent of our electricity from wind by the year 2030.
With handsome subsidies and regulatory support, the U.S. thus faces a push to erect hundreds of thousands of giant wind turbines in the coming years. Does wind energy live up to such enthusiasm? Does it reward such generosity? A look beyond the hype reveals that wind's actual record does not come close to its claims. In addition, big wind has its own substantial adverse impacts on the environment and people's lives.
[] [] []
In Denmark, where wind turbines already produce electricity equal to 20 percent of what the country uses, no conventional power plant has been shut down as a result, and it is hard to find evidence that they are using other fuels any less. In fact, according to the International Energy Agency, natural gas use in Denmark increased more than wind as the latter's turbines went in, and coal has been on the rise in recent years.
Wind turbines produce only 15 to 30 percent of their capacity annually and reach that average rate only one-third of the time. They are essentially idle another third of the time. Because wind is so intermittent and variable, much of its theoretical benefit appears to be cancelled out because the rest of the grid still has to provide electricity as needed in addition to the extra burden of balancing the unpredictable wind-generated supply. Or the spurts of energy from wind are simply tolerated as slight rises in voltage and eventually dissipated over a large grid as heat. Wind is only a symbolic add-on that replaces nothing.
[] [] []
The real results of giant wind turbine facilities have been the opening up of rural and wild places to industrial development and the destruction of communities powerless to stop them. Today's wind turbines are well over 400 feet high, with a rotor span of almost 100 yards, cutting a vertical air space of up to 2 acres. The blades are connected to a bus-sized housing (the "nacelle") for the gears and generator (along with hundreds of gallons of oil) at the top of the tower. The whole assembly weighs 250-350 tons, requiring wide straight heavy-duty roads to transport the parts and cranes for installation and continued maintenance. A large underground foundation, often requiring blasting of bedrock, of hundreds of tons of steel-reinforced concrete, most of which would be left after decommissioning, is necessary to hold it all up. Each tower requires acres of clearance and cannot be close to other turbines, to avoid turbulence. New high-voltage transmission lines and pylons are needed to handle the potential surges and to carry the promised power to distant population centers (or to let it dissipate as heat).
The destructive impact of such construction on, for example, a wild mountain top is obvious: erosion, alteration of wetlands and watersheds, and destruction of wild habitat and plant life.
Other negative impacts follow from this physical reality. At their tips, the rotor blades are slicing through the air at 150 to 200 mph. Substantial numbers of bats (mostly, it seems, by high air pressure rather than collision) and birds (eagles and other raptors being of particular concern) are killed. For two recent examples, at least 2,000 bats were killed by turbines on Backbone Mountain in West Virginia in just 2 months during their 2003 fall migration. And the 195-turbine facility on the Tug Hill plateau in Lewis County, N.Y., will kill at least 8,500-16,000 birds and bats annually, according to data from its first year of operation.
Other animals are adversely affected as well. The breeding and nesting of prairie birds are especially disturbed by disruption of their habitat. Construction on mountain ridges reduces important forest interior habitat far beyond the extent of the clearings themselves. In 2005, several abandoned and dead seal pups were found off Great Yarmouth, England -- investigating biologists concluded that noise from offshore wind turbines disrupted feeding and nurturing. The Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society recently warned of the threat to cetaceans of low-frequency noise from off-shore wind turbines. In many places, people notice a drastic reduction of wildlife after the turbines go in.
Human neighbors, too, are victimized by the noise of the giant machines. Developers commonly get neighbors to sign gag orders in return for a small "forbearance" payment. Leasing landowners are also required to keep quiet. Thus knowing the problems that will arise, the developers set things up to allow denial of them.
Yet everywhere that people live near industrial wind turbines, they are shocked at the noise. It is unnatural and rhythmic, intrusive and unpredictable. People say they can never get used to it. It's typically worse at night, when not only is the normal noise level much lower but sound also carries much farther. Stress and lack of sleep -- and often more serious health problems, such as migraines, dizziness, and disorientation -- are common. Researchers in Portugal have found that conditions for developing vibroacoustic disease exist in homes near wind turbines. A set of symptoms called "wind turbine syndrome" has been extensively documented by Dr. Nina Pierpont in the U.S. Airplane safety lights at night and strobing shadows when the sun is low add to the turbines' invasive presence.
[] [] []
If there were clear benefits from industrial-scale wind energy, the extra burden on our already diminished landscape, on wildlife, and on people's right to enjoy their homes would have to be weighed. Careful siting and nuisance regulations would have to be established and enforced to minimize the impacts. We sorely need such guidelines.
But as Denmark and other countries have already shown us, benefits from wind on the grid remain elusive. There is no meaningful benefit to weigh against the substantial negative impacts on communities, individual lives, and the environment. The destructive boondoggle of industrial wind should be roundly rejected wherever its promoters try to gain a foothold.
wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism
Climate change, dwindling resources, and the geopolitics and ecology of fossil fuels and nuclear power figure prominently in today's worries. As part of any solution, most people unhesitatingly include large-scale wind energy. Wind power companies promise to break our dependence on other fuels and to reduce our emissions of greenhouse gases and other pollutants. Teaming up with the American Wind Energy Association, the U.S. Department of Energy has promoted providing 20 percent of our electricity from wind by the year 2030.
With handsome subsidies and regulatory support, the U.S. thus faces a push to erect hundreds of thousands of giant wind turbines in the coming years. Does wind energy live up to such enthusiasm? Does it reward such generosity? A look beyond the hype reveals that wind's actual record does not come close to its claims. In addition, big wind has its own substantial adverse impacts on the environment and people's lives.
[] [] []
In Denmark, where wind turbines already produce electricity equal to 20 percent of what the country uses, no conventional power plant has been shut down as a result, and it is hard to find evidence that they are using other fuels any less. In fact, according to the International Energy Agency, natural gas use in Denmark increased more than wind as the latter's turbines went in, and coal has been on the rise in recent years.
Wind turbines produce only 15 to 30 percent of their capacity annually and reach that average rate only one-third of the time. They are essentially idle another third of the time. Because wind is so intermittent and variable, much of its theoretical benefit appears to be cancelled out because the rest of the grid still has to provide electricity as needed in addition to the extra burden of balancing the unpredictable wind-generated supply. Or the spurts of energy from wind are simply tolerated as slight rises in voltage and eventually dissipated over a large grid as heat. Wind is only a symbolic add-on that replaces nothing.
[] [] []
The real results of giant wind turbine facilities have been the opening up of rural and wild places to industrial development and the destruction of communities powerless to stop them. Today's wind turbines are well over 400 feet high, with a rotor span of almost 100 yards, cutting a vertical air space of up to 2 acres. The blades are connected to a bus-sized housing (the "nacelle") for the gears and generator (along with hundreds of gallons of oil) at the top of the tower. The whole assembly weighs 250-350 tons, requiring wide straight heavy-duty roads to transport the parts and cranes for installation and continued maintenance. A large underground foundation, often requiring blasting of bedrock, of hundreds of tons of steel-reinforced concrete, most of which would be left after decommissioning, is necessary to hold it all up. Each tower requires acres of clearance and cannot be close to other turbines, to avoid turbulence. New high-voltage transmission lines and pylons are needed to handle the potential surges and to carry the promised power to distant population centers (or to let it dissipate as heat).
The destructive impact of such construction on, for example, a wild mountain top is obvious: erosion, alteration of wetlands and watersheds, and destruction of wild habitat and plant life.
Other negative impacts follow from this physical reality. At their tips, the rotor blades are slicing through the air at 150 to 200 mph. Substantial numbers of bats (mostly, it seems, by high air pressure rather than collision) and birds (eagles and other raptors being of particular concern) are killed. For two recent examples, at least 2,000 bats were killed by turbines on Backbone Mountain in West Virginia in just 2 months during their 2003 fall migration. And the 195-turbine facility on the Tug Hill plateau in Lewis County, N.Y., will kill at least 8,500-16,000 birds and bats annually, according to data from its first year of operation.
Other animals are adversely affected as well. The breeding and nesting of prairie birds are especially disturbed by disruption of their habitat. Construction on mountain ridges reduces important forest interior habitat far beyond the extent of the clearings themselves. In 2005, several abandoned and dead seal pups were found off Great Yarmouth, England -- investigating biologists concluded that noise from offshore wind turbines disrupted feeding and nurturing. The Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society recently warned of the threat to cetaceans of low-frequency noise from off-shore wind turbines. In many places, people notice a drastic reduction of wildlife after the turbines go in.
Human neighbors, too, are victimized by the noise of the giant machines. Developers commonly get neighbors to sign gag orders in return for a small "forbearance" payment. Leasing landowners are also required to keep quiet. Thus knowing the problems that will arise, the developers set things up to allow denial of them.
Yet everywhere that people live near industrial wind turbines, they are shocked at the noise. It is unnatural and rhythmic, intrusive and unpredictable. People say they can never get used to it. It's typically worse at night, when not only is the normal noise level much lower but sound also carries much farther. Stress and lack of sleep -- and often more serious health problems, such as migraines, dizziness, and disorientation -- are common. Researchers in Portugal have found that conditions for developing vibroacoustic disease exist in homes near wind turbines. A set of symptoms called "wind turbine syndrome" has been extensively documented by Dr. Nina Pierpont in the U.S. Airplane safety lights at night and strobing shadows when the sun is low add to the turbines' invasive presence.
[] [] []
If there were clear benefits from industrial-scale wind energy, the extra burden on our already diminished landscape, on wildlife, and on people's right to enjoy their homes would have to be weighed. Careful siting and nuisance regulations would have to be established and enforced to minimize the impacts. We sorely need such guidelines.
But as Denmark and other countries have already shown us, benefits from wind on the grid remain elusive. There is no meaningful benefit to weigh against the substantial negative impacts on communities, individual lives, and the environment. The destructive boondoggle of industrial wind should be roundly rejected wherever its promoters try to gain a foothold.
wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism
July 6, 2008
20% wind by 2030
The U.S. Department of Energy, in a recent report sponsored by the wind industry, says that it is possible to achieve 20% wind "penetration" by 2030.
Accepting the possibility as valid (which it isn't without massively increasing grid interconnection and excess non-wind capacity), what does that mean?
The Dept. of Energy estimates that electricity production will be 5,397 billion kilowatt-hours in 2030, or an average rate of 616,096 megawatts (MW). Twenty percent of that is 123,219 MW. With a capacity factor of 25% (the ratio of actual output to rated capacity), 492,877 MW of wind turbines would have to be installed.
There is currently about 20,000 MW of wind capacity installed in the U.S. (according to the American Wind Energy Association, 16,818 MW were installed by the end of 2007). So more than 470,000 MW more is needed, more than 21,000 MW a year, a rate of building more than four times that of 2007's record breaker.
Each megawatt of wind turbine capacity needs at least 50 acres around it. An installed capacity of 500,000 MW needs 25 million acres, or 39,000 square miles. With the space requirements, and because the machines are huge (now pushing 500 feet in total height), visually intrusive, and noisy, most of them would be erected in previously undeveloped rural and wild areas, along with heavy-duty roads, transformers, and new high-capacity transmission lines.
And after 2030: then what? Electricity demand will continue to grow. If it grows 2% per year, then 10,000 MW -- and more each year -- of new wind turbines would have to be erected every year after 2030 to keep their nominal share at 20%.
But here's the real futility: When the wind isn't blowing, we'll still need full-capacity backup generation -- the grid has to be planned as if the wind plant isn't even there, because quite often it won't be, especially at periods of peak demand. In other words, there won't be any less coal or nuclear, and probably a lot more natural gas (which is better suited to balancing the fluctuations of wind energy production).
The call for 20% wind by 2030 is for a colossal boondoggle that would drastically alter the landscape, adversely affect wildlife, and not significantly change anything for the better.
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights, anarchism, anarchosyndicalism, ecoanarchism
Accepting the possibility as valid (which it isn't without massively increasing grid interconnection and excess non-wind capacity), what does that mean?
The Dept. of Energy estimates that electricity production will be 5,397 billion kilowatt-hours in 2030, or an average rate of 616,096 megawatts (MW). Twenty percent of that is 123,219 MW. With a capacity factor of 25% (the ratio of actual output to rated capacity), 492,877 MW of wind turbines would have to be installed.
There is currently about 20,000 MW of wind capacity installed in the U.S. (according to the American Wind Energy Association, 16,818 MW were installed by the end of 2007). So more than 470,000 MW more is needed, more than 21,000 MW a year, a rate of building more than four times that of 2007's record breaker.
Each megawatt of wind turbine capacity needs at least 50 acres around it. An installed capacity of 500,000 MW needs 25 million acres, or 39,000 square miles. With the space requirements, and because the machines are huge (now pushing 500 feet in total height), visually intrusive, and noisy, most of them would be erected in previously undeveloped rural and wild areas, along with heavy-duty roads, transformers, and new high-capacity transmission lines.
And after 2030: then what? Electricity demand will continue to grow. If it grows 2% per year, then 10,000 MW -- and more each year -- of new wind turbines would have to be erected every year after 2030 to keep their nominal share at 20%.
But here's the real futility: When the wind isn't blowing, we'll still need full-capacity backup generation -- the grid has to be planned as if the wind plant isn't even there, because quite often it won't be, especially at periods of peak demand. In other words, there won't be any less coal or nuclear, and probably a lot more natural gas (which is better suited to balancing the fluctuations of wind energy production).
The call for 20% wind by 2030 is for a colossal boondoggle that would drastically alter the landscape, adversely affect wildlife, and not significantly change anything for the better.
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights, anarchism, anarchosyndicalism, ecoanarchism
June 30, 2008
How I installed OS X 10.4/Tiger on my Power Mac G4 after it refused to, and how I did so without a bootable DVD drive.
"BaseSystem cannot be installed on this computer." That's what the Tiger installer kept telling me.
My Power Mac G4 466 MHz "digital audio" has an external DVD drive connected by USB, so I was attempting to install by directly running the OSInstall.mpkg in System / Installation / Packages, since I can't boot from that DVD drive. I have 2 internal hard drives, with a bootable system on each, so this was feasible by booting into each drive in turn to install Tiger on the other.
Alas, "BaseSystem cannot be installed on this computer."
(Note: this refusal appears to be after the compatibility checks that can be edited in the OSInstall.dist file inside OSInstall.mpkg ("show contents") to allow installation on unapproved machines, such as G3s.)
XPostFacto to the rescue
An open-source project sponsored by Other World Computing, XPostFacto helps to install and boot Mac OS X, Mac OS X Server, and Darwin on some unsupported systems.
But you still need a bootable installer disk, so here's what I did:
1. With Disk Utility, make a disk image of the Tiger install DVD. It doesn't matter where you save it -- as long as there's a few gigabytes (at least 3 GB) of space. (If you're on a network with a DVD-equipped machine, you could do this step on that machine and then copy the disk image to your machine.)
2. With Disk Utility, restore the install DVD disk image to a bootable hard drive (or partition) that doesn't have an OS X system on it already. I copied it to a Firewire-connected external hard drive. Again, you need at least 3 GB of space.
3. Launch XPostFacto. Consider donating to this excellent project. XPostFacto presents a list of disks to install to and a list of bootable installer disks. Pick one of each, and "Install".
XPostFacto will copy some kernel extensions to the target volume and then a modified version of BootX that will use these kernel extensions (along with the standard extensions on the installed disk). Then it will restart the computer and launch (after rebooting in verbose mode) the installer.
4. In the OS X installer, select as the target disk the same disk you selected in XPostFacto.
Success! This post was entered under 10.4 in Firefox 3.
My Power Mac G4 466 MHz "digital audio" has an external DVD drive connected by USB, so I was attempting to install by directly running the OSInstall.mpkg in System / Installation / Packages, since I can't boot from that DVD drive. I have 2 internal hard drives, with a bootable system on each, so this was feasible by booting into each drive in turn to install Tiger on the other.
Alas, "BaseSystem cannot be installed on this computer."
(Note: this refusal appears to be after the compatibility checks that can be edited in the OSInstall.dist file inside OSInstall.mpkg ("show contents") to allow installation on unapproved machines, such as G3s.)
XPostFacto to the rescue
An open-source project sponsored by Other World Computing, XPostFacto helps to install and boot Mac OS X, Mac OS X Server, and Darwin on some unsupported systems.
But you still need a bootable installer disk, so here's what I did:
1. With Disk Utility, make a disk image of the Tiger install DVD. It doesn't matter where you save it -- as long as there's a few gigabytes (at least 3 GB) of space. (If you're on a network with a DVD-equipped machine, you could do this step on that machine and then copy the disk image to your machine.)
2. With Disk Utility, restore the install DVD disk image to a bootable hard drive (or partition) that doesn't have an OS X system on it already. I copied it to a Firewire-connected external hard drive. Again, you need at least 3 GB of space.
3. Launch XPostFacto. Consider donating to this excellent project. XPostFacto presents a list of disks to install to and a list of bootable installer disks. Pick one of each, and "Install".
XPostFacto will copy some kernel extensions to the target volume and then a modified version of BootX that will use these kernel extensions (along with the standard extensions on the installed disk). Then it will restart the computer and launch (after rebooting in verbose mode) the installer.
4. In the OS X installer, select as the target disk the same disk you selected in XPostFacto.
Success! This post was entered under 10.4 in Firefox 3.
June 25, 2008
Stop the noise!
From Katharine Mieszkowski, Salon, Jun. 25, 2008:
Modern cities can be so noisy that ornithologists have found birds warbling at the top of their lungs to be heard. Nightingales in Berlin have been documented singing up to 14 decibels louder than their counterparts in woody environs, in an attempt to make their songs audible above all the background noise. Yet the cacophony of modern life is hardly confined to metropolises like New York or Cairo, Egypt, where you literally have to shout on the street to make yourself heard.
In [the movie] "Noise," Bean's protagonist and his family escape to the country for the weekend. Their getaway is besieged by a neighbor's farting leaf blower. Getting away from it all just isn't that easy.
"For 50 years, if people didn't like noise, and they had money, the solution has been: Move to the suburbs. Now we've made our suburbs noisy. They're no longer quiet refuges," says Les Blomberg, executive director of the Noise Pollution Clearinghouse in Montpelier, Vt. "We got our half-acre lots, and now we have our weed whacker, our leaf blower, our hedge trimmer, our riding lawn mower, and then we hop in our car and drive on four- and six-lane highways past thousands of other suburbs to our place of work, noise-polluting every place we pass."
But you don't have to be an anti-noise crusader to suffer physical effects from noise, even if you're sleeping right through it. Scientists at Imperial College London monitored the blood pressure of 140 sleeping volunteers who lived near London's Heathrow airport. They discovered that subjects' blood pressure rose when a plane few overhead even when the subjects remained asleep. A study of 5,000 45-to-70-year-olds living near airports for at least five years found that they were at greater risk of suffering from hypertension, aka high blood pressure, than their counterparts in quieter realms. People with high blood pressure have an increased risk of developing heart disease, stroke, kidney disease and dementia. In 2007, WHO estimated that long-term exposure to traffic noise may account for 3 percent of deaths from ischemic heart disease among Europeans.
Not only can too much loud noise damage your hearing, or disrupt your sleep, it can literally suck the life out of you thanks to the human body's fight-or-flight response. "The human auditory system is designed to serve as a means of warning against dangers in the environment," explains Louis Hagler, a retired internal medicine specialist in Oakland, Calif. "Noise above a certain level is perceived by the nervous system as a threat." The body responds to that threat with an outpouring of epinephrine and cortisol, the so-called stress hormones. "Your blood pressure goes up, your pulse rate goes up, there is a sudden outpouring of sugar into the bloodstream so the body is prepared to meet whatever threat there is in the environment."
If exposures are intermittent or rare, the body has the chance to return to normal. But if the exposure is unrelenting, the body doesn't have a chance to calm down, and blood pressure and heart rate may remain elevated, Hagler explains. That's why what seems like a mere annoyance can actually have long-term health effects. "There is no question that people who live near a busy roadway are experiencing effects on their blood pressure," says Hagler.
... "There is no evidence that noise causes mental illness itself, but there is little doubt that it may accelerate or intensify some kind of mental disorders," explains Hagler. He adds that symptoms of exposure to noise pollution include anxiety, nervousness, nausea, headaches, emotional instability, argumentativeness and changes in mood. No wonder excessive noise has been used as a form of torture.
... In the United States, back in the '70s, when [psychologist Arline] Bronzaft was documenting how children studying in classrooms next to elevated train tracks had delayed learning, there was an outpouring of official concern about the effects of noise, on both health and quality of life. In 1972, Congress passed the Noise Control Act. The Environmental Protection Agency had its own Office of Noise Abatement and Control, which still exists today, but as an unfunded skeleton. What happened? "A man got elected president named Ronald Reagan and everything stopped," says Bronzaft. The Gipper decided that noise was best regulated by cities and states, but federal funding to help them evaporated. Attempts to re-fund the office have failed. ...
[The results of a 3-year study of the physical effects of living near giant wind turbines is planned for publication late this summer. Click here for more information.]
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism<, human rights, animal rights, Vermont
Modern cities can be so noisy that ornithologists have found birds warbling at the top of their lungs to be heard. Nightingales in Berlin have been documented singing up to 14 decibels louder than their counterparts in woody environs, in an attempt to make their songs audible above all the background noise. Yet the cacophony of modern life is hardly confined to metropolises like New York or Cairo, Egypt, where you literally have to shout on the street to make yourself heard.
In [the movie] "Noise," Bean's protagonist and his family escape to the country for the weekend. Their getaway is besieged by a neighbor's farting leaf blower. Getting away from it all just isn't that easy.
"For 50 years, if people didn't like noise, and they had money, the solution has been: Move to the suburbs. Now we've made our suburbs noisy. They're no longer quiet refuges," says Les Blomberg, executive director of the Noise Pollution Clearinghouse in Montpelier, Vt. "We got our half-acre lots, and now we have our weed whacker, our leaf blower, our hedge trimmer, our riding lawn mower, and then we hop in our car and drive on four- and six-lane highways past thousands of other suburbs to our place of work, noise-polluting every place we pass."
But you don't have to be an anti-noise crusader to suffer physical effects from noise, even if you're sleeping right through it. Scientists at Imperial College London monitored the blood pressure of 140 sleeping volunteers who lived near London's Heathrow airport. They discovered that subjects' blood pressure rose when a plane few overhead even when the subjects remained asleep. A study of 5,000 45-to-70-year-olds living near airports for at least five years found that they were at greater risk of suffering from hypertension, aka high blood pressure, than their counterparts in quieter realms. People with high blood pressure have an increased risk of developing heart disease, stroke, kidney disease and dementia. In 2007, WHO estimated that long-term exposure to traffic noise may account for 3 percent of deaths from ischemic heart disease among Europeans.
Not only can too much loud noise damage your hearing, or disrupt your sleep, it can literally suck the life out of you thanks to the human body's fight-or-flight response. "The human auditory system is designed to serve as a means of warning against dangers in the environment," explains Louis Hagler, a retired internal medicine specialist in Oakland, Calif. "Noise above a certain level is perceived by the nervous system as a threat." The body responds to that threat with an outpouring of epinephrine and cortisol, the so-called stress hormones. "Your blood pressure goes up, your pulse rate goes up, there is a sudden outpouring of sugar into the bloodstream so the body is prepared to meet whatever threat there is in the environment."
If exposures are intermittent or rare, the body has the chance to return to normal. But if the exposure is unrelenting, the body doesn't have a chance to calm down, and blood pressure and heart rate may remain elevated, Hagler explains. That's why what seems like a mere annoyance can actually have long-term health effects. "There is no question that people who live near a busy roadway are experiencing effects on their blood pressure," says Hagler.
... "There is no evidence that noise causes mental illness itself, but there is little doubt that it may accelerate or intensify some kind of mental disorders," explains Hagler. He adds that symptoms of exposure to noise pollution include anxiety, nervousness, nausea, headaches, emotional instability, argumentativeness and changes in mood. No wonder excessive noise has been used as a form of torture.
... In the United States, back in the '70s, when [psychologist Arline] Bronzaft was documenting how children studying in classrooms next to elevated train tracks had delayed learning, there was an outpouring of official concern about the effects of noise, on both health and quality of life. In 1972, Congress passed the Noise Control Act. The Environmental Protection Agency had its own Office of Noise Abatement and Control, which still exists today, but as an unfunded skeleton. What happened? "A man got elected president named Ronald Reagan and everything stopped," says Bronzaft. The Gipper decided that noise was best regulated by cities and states, but federal funding to help them evaporated. Attempts to re-fund the office have failed. ...
[The results of a 3-year study of the physical effects of living near giant wind turbines is planned for publication late this summer. Click here for more information.]
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism<, human rights, animal rights, Vermont
June 20, 2008
Many challenges for wind development
"For advocates who are trying to promote the adoption of wind power, there are many challenges: government regulations; transmission access policies; zoning, siting, and licensing restricitins; environmental, avian, noise, and aesthetic opposition; competitor politics; high costs; resistant funding sources; near-neighbor conflict; and radiofrequecy interference. This is just the short list."
--Timlynn Babitsky, Wind Project Community Organizing, an exposé of the manipulative hucksterism developers use to ram through a project.
wind power, wind energy, wind farms<, environment, environmentalism
--Timlynn Babitsky, Wind Project Community Organizing, an exposé of the manipulative hucksterism developers use to ram through a project.
wind power, wind energy, wind farms<, environment, environmentalism
June 6, 2008
Vientos de despojo (Winds of destruction)
¡Basta ya de despojos, basta ya de impunidad, ya no mas muerte!
(No more plunder, no more impunity, no more death!)
"Ejidatarios de La Venta presentaron demandas legales contra la CFE", Juchitan, Oaxaca, a 1º de Febrero del año 2007
Habitantes de La Venta, pertenecientes al Frente de Pueblos del Istmo en Defensa de la Tierra, interpusieron una demanda ante la agencia del Ministerio Publico, contra la Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE), organismo al cual acusan de causar daños en sus parcelas por el paso de lineas de transmisión de energÃa ...
"Carta del Grupo Solidario La Venta a Dr. Rodolfo Stavenhagen", La Venta, Juchitán, Oaxaca a 14 de Febrero del 2007
Dr. Rodolfo Stavenhagen, Relator Especial de la Oficina en México del Alto Comisionado de las NNUU para los DDHH --
Alejo Girón Carrasco, en mi calidad de Presidente del Grupo Solidario La Venta, vengo por este conducto a expresarle lo siguiente:
Nuestro ejido ubicado en él municipio de Juchitán, Oaxaca, ha venido sufriendo enormes presiones por parte de funcionarios estatales y federales y de empleados de empresas con el fin de que alquilemos nuestras tierras para la ejecución del megaproyecto Eolo eléctrico La Venta II y La Venta III, el primero de los cuales ya se encuentra casi concluido y el segundo esta proyectado para iniciar los próximos meses. Las obras las ha venido realizado la empresa trasnacional de capital español Iberdrola. ...
"Vientos de despojo en La Venta", Silvia Hernández y Sergio de Castro, Noticias de Oaxaca, 4/2007
El pasado 29 de marzo el presidente de México, Felipe Calderón, inauguraba en acto solemne la segunda parte del proyecto eólico La Venta, situado en la región oaxaqueña del Istmo de Tehuantepec. Mientras declaraba que se debÃan desterrar "problemas como la corrupción, la impunidad, el abuso; problemas como el odio y la violencia entre hermanos", un operativo militar y policial de 2000 efectivos resguardaban las inversiones de las trasnacionales realizadas sobre el despojo de las tierras de los indÃgenas y campesinos de la región. ...
"Instalaron generadores de energÃa eólica sobre ruinas arqueológicas", Pedro Matias, 2007-08-22
Autoridades ejidales y asociaciones civiles de La Venta, denunciaron ante el Instituto Nacional de AntropologÃa e Historia, el hallazgo de vestigios arqueológicos en la zona donde se instalaron aerogeneradores de energÃa eolica. ...
Convocatoria encuentro mexicano por la defensa de las tierra y la soberania nacional y por el derecho a la consulta a los pueblos indios, 29/8/2007 [includes English translation]
En estos últimos años, con la imposición de megaproyectos como el Plan Puebla-Panamá se han venido intensificando por todo nuestro paÃs, las acciones de despojo y de violencia en contra de poblaciones indÃgenas y campesinas. Los grandes programas de inversión en materia energética que viene impulsando el Gobierno federal, están orientados a beneficiar a las empresas trasnacionales, por ello no son tomados en cuenta los derechos de las comunidades afectadas ni los grandes costos ambientales y económicos que se derivan de la ejecución de estos megaproyectos. Además el Gobierno mexicano viene violando acuerdos y tratados internacionales asà como legislación nacional ya que en la ejecución de estos programas no han sido ni informadas ni consultadas las comunidades indÃgenas afectadas. ...
"Contratos ilegales y rentas miserables por las tierras en el proyecto eólico del istmo", Yesika Cruz y Citlalli Méndez, 26 de octubre de 2007
El proyecto de generación de energÃa eléctrica, que los expertos aseguran es limpio, se ensucia para los campesinos debido a la falta de información y de claridad en los contratos y pagos por la renta de sus tierras. ...
"Hay ruinas arqueológicas bajo el parque eoloeléctrico La Venta II", Octavio Vélez Ascencio (Corresponsal), Oaxaca, Oax., 19 de diciembre
Autoridades ejidales y asociaciones civiles de La Venta, municipio de Juchitán de Zaragoza, dieron a conocer al Instituto Nacional de AntropologÃa e Historia (INAH) el hallazgo de vestigios arqueológicos en la zona donde la Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE) instaló generadores de energÃa eólica. ...
Conflictos intersindicales y condiciones de trabajo en el parque eólico “La Venta I y II”, 31/1/2008
En el Istmo de Tehuantepec, estado de Oaxaca, la apertura de los trabajos del mega proyecto del Plan Puebla Panamá, que pretende conectar un inmenso corredor industrial del Puerto de Salina Cruz, Oaxaca, al Puerto de Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz mediante la instalación de grandes maquiladoras, bancos camaroniferos, explotación de mármol, piedras y otros minerales, ampliación de obras de extracción y refinación de crudo, operación de un ferrocarril de alta velocidad que conecte ambos puertos para el traslado de mercancÃas, etc. Las obras para la construcción del parque eólico “La Venta I, II y III”, de aerogeneración eléctrica, contemplada como una de las principales medidas del mega proyecto, comenzadas desde 1994 a cargo de empresas extranjeras como GAMESA e IBEDROLA, junto Comisión Federal de Electricidad son parte del preámbulo para la privatización de la industria energética nacional. ...
Declaración Oaxaca Libre, Lunes, 14 Abril, 2008
Los pueblos, organizaciones, colectivos y grupos reunidos en la Ciudad de Oaxaca en el foro estatal por la defensa de los derechos de lospueblos de oaxaca, provenientes de todas las regiones de nuestro estado, y contando tambien con la presencia solidaria de observadoresnacionales e internacionales. Declaramos:
• Que en oaxaca gobierna una mafia, que utiliza los recursos publicos en su propio beneficio, que promueve la privatizacion de las tierras, elagua, los recursos forestales y mineros y que utiliza de manera abierta la violencia y la represion para frenar la justa lucha denuestros pueblos.
• Que la miseria, la injusticia y la violencia que sufre el pueblo oaxaqueño es producto de un sistema caciquil protegido por el gobierno federal. En oaxaca vivimos en un estado de excepcion, donde las garantias constitucionales y los derechos humanos son constantemente violados por los mismos gobernantes.
• Que condenamos energicamente el asesinato y la detencion derepresentantes indigenas y del movimiento ciudadano y manifestamos nuestra indignacion y condena por los recientes homicidios de Felicitas Martinez, Teresa Bautista, Placido Lopez Castro, Lauro Juarez y Rosalino Diaz y exigimos el esclarecimiento de estos crimenes y el castigo a los responsables materiales e intelectuales de los mismos.
• Que exigimos el respeto a las tierras y recursos naturales propiedad de nuestros pueblos indigenas, ratificamos nuestro derecho a la consultaante los megaproyectos y demandamos la salida de nuestras tierras de las empresas electricas, mineras, turisticas, forestales trasnacionales.
• Que demandamos el respeto a las radios comunitarias y el cese alhostigamiento que vienen haciendo los caciques priista, los militares y los funcionarios federales. Exigimos sea respetado el derecho de lospueblos indigenas a la libre expresion y a la utilizacion de los mediosde comunicación para hacer la defensa de nuestro patrimonio y de nuestracultura.
• Que con el pretexto del combate al narcotrafico, las dieferentes regiones de nuestro estado han sido militarizadas, lo cual hasignificado la violacion a los derechos humanos de la poblacion indigena. Estos operativos militares provocan miedo y buscan intimidarlos reclamos de nuestras comunidades. Las violaciones a los derechos humanos alcanzan tambien a nuestros hermanos y hermanas centroamericanos que tienen la necesidad de cruzar por nuestro pais.
• Que una debilidad en la lucha de nuestros pueblos, es la falta deorganización y el aislamiento, por ello coincidimos en que es necesario crear una alianza de nuestros pueblos y organizaciones basada en los principios, en la historia y en la costumbre comunitaria de nuestros pueblos; una alianza independiente de todos los partidos politicos, sinburocracia ni lideres, una alianza construida desde abajo donde mujeres y hombres se amos respetados. Una alianza que nos ayude a frenar la represion, que nos permita defender nuestro patrimonio y cultura y quenos ayude a alcanzar la autonomia de nuestros pueblos.
Llamamiento:
• Hacemos un llamado urgente a las organizaciones y grupos, indigenas, decomunicadores, de mujeres, de derechos humanos de oaxaca, mexico y anivel internacional para que el asesinato de nuestras compañeras Teresa Bautista y Felicitas no quede en la impunidad, es por ello que les solicitamos se unan a nuestro reclamo de que sea la fiscalia especializada para la atencion a delitos en contra de periodistas la querealice la investigacion sobre este crimen que nos indigna.
• Acompañar de manera solidariala lucha de resistencia del ayuntamiento autonomo de San Juan Copala, de San Pedro Yosotatu, Chalcatongo, San Juan del Rio y El Pipila seriamente amenazados por el gobierno de Ulises Ruiz y de las bandas de pistoleros que operan en esas regiones con laproteccion del gobierno estatal. Demandamos castigo para los asesinosandres Castro Garcia e Inocente Castro Victoria autores intelectuales del crimen de nuestro compañero placido lopez.
• Impulsar con renovados brios la lucha por la liberacion de nuestros compañeros presos politicos Pedro Castillo Aragon, Flavio Sosa, Miguel Juan Hilaria, Adan Mejia, Miguel Angel Garcia, Victor Hugo Martinez, Roberto Cardenas Rosas, Reynaldo Martinez Ramirez, Constantino Hilario Castro, Homero Castro Lopez, Juliantino Martinez Garcia. Luchar por el cese de la persecucion en contra de nuestros compañeros y por la cancelacion de cientos de ordenes de aprehension que han sido libradas en contra de representantes comunitarios, de la Mixteca, Sierra Juarez, Valles Centrales, La Cuenca y el Istmo de Tehuantepec.
• Manifestamos que los derechos de las mujeres deben de ser respetados, es por ello que exigimos el cese a la violencia de genero, que seades penalizado a nivel nacional el aborto y que la equidad sea una de las demandas centrales del movimiento social.
• Ante la dificil situacion que vive el pueblo oaxaqueño, hacemos un llamado fraterno y respetuoso a los pueblos, colonias, barricadas, organizaciones, sindicatos, grupos de mujeres, organismos nogubernamentales, de jovenes, artistas y intelectuales para reconstruirla asamblea popular de los pueblos de oaxaca bajo los principios que ledieron vida, basados en la autonomia, independencia, comunalidad, el consenso y el respeto. La APPO no debe de ser patrimonio de ningun grupo politico ni su consejo un espacio sectario de lideres. La APPO debere cuperar su carácter de asamblea, donde sea respetada la diversidad, donde sea reconocida la voz y los derechos de las mujeres, donde las decisiones se tomen por consenso y que cuente con un programa de lucha integral que le permita a nuestro pueblo la defensa efectiva de sus derechos. Solo una APPO fortalecida podra enfrentar la barbarie en la que vivimos los oaxaqueños.
Basta ya de despojos, basta ya de impunidad, ya no mas muerte.
Dada en Oaxaca de Juarez, Oaxaca, la ciudad de la dignidad y la resistencia el dia que recordamos la muerte de Emiliano Zapata, 10 de abril del 2008
Ayuntamiento Autonomo de San Juan Copala, Comunidad de Yosotatu, UDEPI-Mixteca; Coordinadora de Organizaciones y Pueblos de La Chinantla; Bienes Comunales de Chalcatongo, Organizaciones Indias por los Derechos Humanos de Oaxaca, Radio Huave, Cerec-Tepeuxila, Colectivo Autonomomagonista, UCIZONI, Comunidad de Monte Aguila, Mazatlan, RED de Radios comunitarias y Indigenas del Sureste de Mexico; Comunidad La Esmeralda Chimalapa, Radio Ayuuk, Centro de Derechos Humanos Tepeyac, Ceapi, Tierra Blanca, Chimalapa; Cactus; CODEDI-Xanica, CODECI, Comunidad Desan Pedro Evangelista, Matiias Romero, Comision Magisterial de Derechos Humanos (Seccion 22 del SNTE); UVI, FUNDAR, Radio Arco Iris; Comunidad de San Juan Jaltepec, Ejido El Pipila; Ojo de Agua, Comunicación; Radio Tezoatlan; Asamblea Universitaria UAM-A; MPR; Frente Coordilleranorte-Mixteca; Comunidad de Santa Cruz Mixtepec; Ceuco, Maiz, Asoc. Nacional de Abogados Democraticos; AMAP; Radio Planton; CIMAC; Oaxaca Libre; Centro Social Libertario; Grupo Solidario La Venta, Frente de Pueblos del Istmo en Defensa de la Tierra; CODEP; CODEM; Comité Deliberacion 25 de Noviembre; Radio Bemba; Nodho por Derechos Humanos; Consorcio por la Equidad de Genero; Radio Ke-Huelga
wind power, wind energy, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, human rights, anarchism, anarchosyndicalism, ecoanarchism
(No more plunder, no more impunity, no more death!)
"Ejidatarios de La Venta presentaron demandas legales contra la CFE", Juchitan, Oaxaca, a 1º de Febrero del año 2007
Habitantes de La Venta, pertenecientes al Frente de Pueblos del Istmo en Defensa de la Tierra, interpusieron una demanda ante la agencia del Ministerio Publico, contra la Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE), organismo al cual acusan de causar daños en sus parcelas por el paso de lineas de transmisión de energÃa ...
"Carta del Grupo Solidario La Venta a Dr. Rodolfo Stavenhagen", La Venta, Juchitán, Oaxaca a 14 de Febrero del 2007
Dr. Rodolfo Stavenhagen, Relator Especial de la Oficina en México del Alto Comisionado de las NNUU para los DDHH --
Alejo Girón Carrasco, en mi calidad de Presidente del Grupo Solidario La Venta, vengo por este conducto a expresarle lo siguiente:
Nuestro ejido ubicado en él municipio de Juchitán, Oaxaca, ha venido sufriendo enormes presiones por parte de funcionarios estatales y federales y de empleados de empresas con el fin de que alquilemos nuestras tierras para la ejecución del megaproyecto Eolo eléctrico La Venta II y La Venta III, el primero de los cuales ya se encuentra casi concluido y el segundo esta proyectado para iniciar los próximos meses. Las obras las ha venido realizado la empresa trasnacional de capital español Iberdrola. ...
"Vientos de despojo en La Venta", Silvia Hernández y Sergio de Castro, Noticias de Oaxaca, 4/2007
El pasado 29 de marzo el presidente de México, Felipe Calderón, inauguraba en acto solemne la segunda parte del proyecto eólico La Venta, situado en la región oaxaqueña del Istmo de Tehuantepec. Mientras declaraba que se debÃan desterrar "problemas como la corrupción, la impunidad, el abuso; problemas como el odio y la violencia entre hermanos", un operativo militar y policial de 2000 efectivos resguardaban las inversiones de las trasnacionales realizadas sobre el despojo de las tierras de los indÃgenas y campesinos de la región. ...
"Instalaron generadores de energÃa eólica sobre ruinas arqueológicas", Pedro Matias, 2007-08-22
Autoridades ejidales y asociaciones civiles de La Venta, denunciaron ante el Instituto Nacional de AntropologÃa e Historia, el hallazgo de vestigios arqueológicos en la zona donde se instalaron aerogeneradores de energÃa eolica. ...
Convocatoria encuentro mexicano por la defensa de las tierra y la soberania nacional y por el derecho a la consulta a los pueblos indios, 29/8/2007 [includes English translation]
En estos últimos años, con la imposición de megaproyectos como el Plan Puebla-Panamá se han venido intensificando por todo nuestro paÃs, las acciones de despojo y de violencia en contra de poblaciones indÃgenas y campesinas. Los grandes programas de inversión en materia energética que viene impulsando el Gobierno federal, están orientados a beneficiar a las empresas trasnacionales, por ello no son tomados en cuenta los derechos de las comunidades afectadas ni los grandes costos ambientales y económicos que se derivan de la ejecución de estos megaproyectos. Además el Gobierno mexicano viene violando acuerdos y tratados internacionales asà como legislación nacional ya que en la ejecución de estos programas no han sido ni informadas ni consultadas las comunidades indÃgenas afectadas. ...
"Contratos ilegales y rentas miserables por las tierras en el proyecto eólico del istmo", Yesika Cruz y Citlalli Méndez, 26 de octubre de 2007
El proyecto de generación de energÃa eléctrica, que los expertos aseguran es limpio, se ensucia para los campesinos debido a la falta de información y de claridad en los contratos y pagos por la renta de sus tierras. ...
"Hay ruinas arqueológicas bajo el parque eoloeléctrico La Venta II", Octavio Vélez Ascencio (Corresponsal), Oaxaca, Oax., 19 de diciembre
Autoridades ejidales y asociaciones civiles de La Venta, municipio de Juchitán de Zaragoza, dieron a conocer al Instituto Nacional de AntropologÃa e Historia (INAH) el hallazgo de vestigios arqueológicos en la zona donde la Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE) instaló generadores de energÃa eólica. ...
Conflictos intersindicales y condiciones de trabajo en el parque eólico “La Venta I y II”, 31/1/2008
En el Istmo de Tehuantepec, estado de Oaxaca, la apertura de los trabajos del mega proyecto del Plan Puebla Panamá, que pretende conectar un inmenso corredor industrial del Puerto de Salina Cruz, Oaxaca, al Puerto de Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz mediante la instalación de grandes maquiladoras, bancos camaroniferos, explotación de mármol, piedras y otros minerales, ampliación de obras de extracción y refinación de crudo, operación de un ferrocarril de alta velocidad que conecte ambos puertos para el traslado de mercancÃas, etc. Las obras para la construcción del parque eólico “La Venta I, II y III”, de aerogeneración eléctrica, contemplada como una de las principales medidas del mega proyecto, comenzadas desde 1994 a cargo de empresas extranjeras como GAMESA e IBEDROLA, junto Comisión Federal de Electricidad son parte del preámbulo para la privatización de la industria energética nacional. ...
Declaración Oaxaca Libre, Lunes, 14 Abril, 2008
Los pueblos, organizaciones, colectivos y grupos reunidos en la Ciudad de Oaxaca en el foro estatal por la defensa de los derechos de lospueblos de oaxaca, provenientes de todas las regiones de nuestro estado, y contando tambien con la presencia solidaria de observadoresnacionales e internacionales. Declaramos:
• Que en oaxaca gobierna una mafia, que utiliza los recursos publicos en su propio beneficio, que promueve la privatizacion de las tierras, elagua, los recursos forestales y mineros y que utiliza de manera abierta la violencia y la represion para frenar la justa lucha denuestros pueblos.
• Que la miseria, la injusticia y la violencia que sufre el pueblo oaxaqueño es producto de un sistema caciquil protegido por el gobierno federal. En oaxaca vivimos en un estado de excepcion, donde las garantias constitucionales y los derechos humanos son constantemente violados por los mismos gobernantes.
• Que condenamos energicamente el asesinato y la detencion derepresentantes indigenas y del movimiento ciudadano y manifestamos nuestra indignacion y condena por los recientes homicidios de Felicitas Martinez, Teresa Bautista, Placido Lopez Castro, Lauro Juarez y Rosalino Diaz y exigimos el esclarecimiento de estos crimenes y el castigo a los responsables materiales e intelectuales de los mismos.
• Que exigimos el respeto a las tierras y recursos naturales propiedad de nuestros pueblos indigenas, ratificamos nuestro derecho a la consultaante los megaproyectos y demandamos la salida de nuestras tierras de las empresas electricas, mineras, turisticas, forestales trasnacionales.
• Que demandamos el respeto a las radios comunitarias y el cese alhostigamiento que vienen haciendo los caciques priista, los militares y los funcionarios federales. Exigimos sea respetado el derecho de lospueblos indigenas a la libre expresion y a la utilizacion de los mediosde comunicación para hacer la defensa de nuestro patrimonio y de nuestracultura.
• Que con el pretexto del combate al narcotrafico, las dieferentes regiones de nuestro estado han sido militarizadas, lo cual hasignificado la violacion a los derechos humanos de la poblacion indigena. Estos operativos militares provocan miedo y buscan intimidarlos reclamos de nuestras comunidades. Las violaciones a los derechos humanos alcanzan tambien a nuestros hermanos y hermanas centroamericanos que tienen la necesidad de cruzar por nuestro pais.
• Que una debilidad en la lucha de nuestros pueblos, es la falta deorganización y el aislamiento, por ello coincidimos en que es necesario crear una alianza de nuestros pueblos y organizaciones basada en los principios, en la historia y en la costumbre comunitaria de nuestros pueblos; una alianza independiente de todos los partidos politicos, sinburocracia ni lideres, una alianza construida desde abajo donde mujeres y hombres se amos respetados. Una alianza que nos ayude a frenar la represion, que nos permita defender nuestro patrimonio y cultura y quenos ayude a alcanzar la autonomia de nuestros pueblos.
Llamamiento:
• Hacemos un llamado urgente a las organizaciones y grupos, indigenas, decomunicadores, de mujeres, de derechos humanos de oaxaca, mexico y anivel internacional para que el asesinato de nuestras compañeras Teresa Bautista y Felicitas no quede en la impunidad, es por ello que les solicitamos se unan a nuestro reclamo de que sea la fiscalia especializada para la atencion a delitos en contra de periodistas la querealice la investigacion sobre este crimen que nos indigna.
• Acompañar de manera solidariala lucha de resistencia del ayuntamiento autonomo de San Juan Copala, de San Pedro Yosotatu, Chalcatongo, San Juan del Rio y El Pipila seriamente amenazados por el gobierno de Ulises Ruiz y de las bandas de pistoleros que operan en esas regiones con laproteccion del gobierno estatal. Demandamos castigo para los asesinosandres Castro Garcia e Inocente Castro Victoria autores intelectuales del crimen de nuestro compañero placido lopez.
• Impulsar con renovados brios la lucha por la liberacion de nuestros compañeros presos politicos Pedro Castillo Aragon, Flavio Sosa, Miguel Juan Hilaria, Adan Mejia, Miguel Angel Garcia, Victor Hugo Martinez, Roberto Cardenas Rosas, Reynaldo Martinez Ramirez, Constantino Hilario Castro, Homero Castro Lopez, Juliantino Martinez Garcia. Luchar por el cese de la persecucion en contra de nuestros compañeros y por la cancelacion de cientos de ordenes de aprehension que han sido libradas en contra de representantes comunitarios, de la Mixteca, Sierra Juarez, Valles Centrales, La Cuenca y el Istmo de Tehuantepec.
• Manifestamos que los derechos de las mujeres deben de ser respetados, es por ello que exigimos el cese a la violencia de genero, que seades penalizado a nivel nacional el aborto y que la equidad sea una de las demandas centrales del movimiento social.
• Ante la dificil situacion que vive el pueblo oaxaqueño, hacemos un llamado fraterno y respetuoso a los pueblos, colonias, barricadas, organizaciones, sindicatos, grupos de mujeres, organismos nogubernamentales, de jovenes, artistas y intelectuales para reconstruirla asamblea popular de los pueblos de oaxaca bajo los principios que ledieron vida, basados en la autonomia, independencia, comunalidad, el consenso y el respeto. La APPO no debe de ser patrimonio de ningun grupo politico ni su consejo un espacio sectario de lideres. La APPO debere cuperar su carácter de asamblea, donde sea respetada la diversidad, donde sea reconocida la voz y los derechos de las mujeres, donde las decisiones se tomen por consenso y que cuente con un programa de lucha integral que le permita a nuestro pueblo la defensa efectiva de sus derechos. Solo una APPO fortalecida podra enfrentar la barbarie en la que vivimos los oaxaqueños.
Basta ya de despojos, basta ya de impunidad, ya no mas muerte.
Dada en Oaxaca de Juarez, Oaxaca, la ciudad de la dignidad y la resistencia el dia que recordamos la muerte de Emiliano Zapata, 10 de abril del 2008
Ayuntamiento Autonomo de San Juan Copala, Comunidad de Yosotatu, UDEPI-Mixteca; Coordinadora de Organizaciones y Pueblos de La Chinantla; Bienes Comunales de Chalcatongo, Organizaciones Indias por los Derechos Humanos de Oaxaca, Radio Huave, Cerec-Tepeuxila, Colectivo Autonomomagonista, UCIZONI, Comunidad de Monte Aguila, Mazatlan, RED de Radios comunitarias y Indigenas del Sureste de Mexico; Comunidad La Esmeralda Chimalapa, Radio Ayuuk, Centro de Derechos Humanos Tepeyac, Ceapi, Tierra Blanca, Chimalapa; Cactus; CODEDI-Xanica, CODECI, Comunidad Desan Pedro Evangelista, Matiias Romero, Comision Magisterial de Derechos Humanos (Seccion 22 del SNTE); UVI, FUNDAR, Radio Arco Iris; Comunidad de San Juan Jaltepec, Ejido El Pipila; Ojo de Agua, Comunicación; Radio Tezoatlan; Asamblea Universitaria UAM-A; MPR; Frente Coordilleranorte-Mixteca; Comunidad de Santa Cruz Mixtepec; Ceuco, Maiz, Asoc. Nacional de Abogados Democraticos; AMAP; Radio Planton; CIMAC; Oaxaca Libre; Centro Social Libertario; Grupo Solidario La Venta, Frente de Pueblos del Istmo en Defensa de la Tierra; CODEP; CODEM; Comité Deliberacion 25 de Noviembre; Radio Bemba; Nodho por Derechos Humanos; Consorcio por la Equidad de Genero; Radio Ke-Huelga
wind power, wind energy, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, human rights, anarchism, anarchosyndicalism, ecoanarchism
June 5, 2008
Facing the winds of power in India
Gururaja Budhya writes at "NGO Forum on ADB [Asian Development Bank]" (click on title of this post for original):
“Our village used to have peacocks roaming around. We had strict rules to protect them along with other flora and fauna visiting our village,” said a woman from the community. She has been cursing the installation of the wind mills surrounding their village and has been blaming it for the disappearance of peacocks. She lamented that the installation of the windmills surrounding the hills was done without any consultation with them.
The woman narrated that the hills have been chopped, causing soil erosion and affecting the flora and fauna in the region. Hundreds of windmills in Karnataka have caused the alteration of geography, affected the topography, greenery and the endangered species of flora and fauna.
The proponents of development want the villagers living near the resources to “sacrifice for the development of the nation.” For years, the same people who sacrificed their resources have been denied to get a fair share of the “fruits” of development. They ended up only as contributors. At the same time, they have suffered due to the impact brought by development. The mining case in Orissa is another example of such development devastating the forest lands and forest dwellers.
The promoters of windmills in Davanagere district have begun community development initiatives as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), resulting in the formation of women’s self help groups and construction of toilets, to name a few. I find these initiatives, which are part of the CSR of these so-called corporate houses, totally misguiding.
Corporations have social responsibility – to be sensitive to the nature of their investments and be able to boldly address the issues of social development. As a part of this responsibility, corporations must spend on mitigation measures and environmental impacts assessments, for example. This means said measures must be part of the investment allocated to address the negative impacts of the project. Additionally, a part of the annual profits have to be ploughed back into the development of the community. For me, this is part of fulfilling their Corporate Social Responsibility.
But cleverly, many companies do not address the negative impacts of their projects. They spend a small project allocation for their so-called community development activities – claiming it as Corporate Social Responsibility. No ethics, no sensitivity, no social responsibility – all at the cost of people for high profits.
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights
“Our village used to have peacocks roaming around. We had strict rules to protect them along with other flora and fauna visiting our village,” said a woman from the community. She has been cursing the installation of the wind mills surrounding their village and has been blaming it for the disappearance of peacocks. She lamented that the installation of the windmills surrounding the hills was done without any consultation with them.
The woman narrated that the hills have been chopped, causing soil erosion and affecting the flora and fauna in the region. Hundreds of windmills in Karnataka have caused the alteration of geography, affected the topography, greenery and the endangered species of flora and fauna.
The proponents of development want the villagers living near the resources to “sacrifice for the development of the nation.” For years, the same people who sacrificed their resources have been denied to get a fair share of the “fruits” of development. They ended up only as contributors. At the same time, they have suffered due to the impact brought by development. The mining case in Orissa is another example of such development devastating the forest lands and forest dwellers.
The promoters of windmills in Davanagere district have begun community development initiatives as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), resulting in the formation of women’s self help groups and construction of toilets, to name a few. I find these initiatives, which are part of the CSR of these so-called corporate houses, totally misguiding.
Corporations have social responsibility – to be sensitive to the nature of their investments and be able to boldly address the issues of social development. As a part of this responsibility, corporations must spend on mitigation measures and environmental impacts assessments, for example. This means said measures must be part of the investment allocated to address the negative impacts of the project. Additionally, a part of the annual profits have to be ploughed back into the development of the community. For me, this is part of fulfilling their Corporate Social Responsibility.
But cleverly, many companies do not address the negative impacts of their projects. They spend a small project allocation for their so-called community development activities – claiming it as Corporate Social Responsibility. No ethics, no sensitivity, no social responsibility – all at the cost of people for high profits.
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights
Wind Turbine Hell
Carol Cowperthwaite or Mars Hill, Maine, writes in the June 5 Waldo County Citizen (via National Wind Watch):
I am a resident of Mars Hill, whose personal life and community life have been severely impacted by the nearby UPC Wind plant.
Here is my story:
My husband and I had moved away from Mars Hill, and our retirement dream was to come back to old friends, peace, quiet and country living. The first year after building our house back here was heaven. The quiet was so complete that we thought we had gone deaf. The wildlife on our lawn was so much fun.
We had heard about the windmills, but when we asked how they would affect us if we bought the land, the town manager told us we wouldn’t even see them, much less hear them because they were going to be on the front of the mountain.
We believed him. That was our biggest mistake. At the time, we had no idea that the town fathers had not even read the application that they had co-signed, nor hired a lawyer to explain it to them. They had no idea what they had agreed to. They believed everything UPC had told them.
The biggest lie of all was that there would be no noise, or you had to be within 500 feet to hear anything. I believe that is still the propaganda.
We had one winter of quiet solitude, then with the spring came giant bulldozers, and cranes took over our mountain. Roads three lanes wide were being cut through the trees. Blasting began. We never knew when they were going to blast. The windows shook and the ledge would land on our lawn because they wouldn’t use mats. The heavy equipment would start up before daylight and go late in the night.
What a shock it was to all of us when they blasted away the whole end of the mountain. The giant scar got bigger and bigger. Then were more huge scars across our beautiful mountain. The whole terrain was being devastated. ... The beauty and the access to the ridges would never be again. ...
The massive white giants started turning and were on line in March 2007. Our lives greatly changed that day. We had been upset over the blasting and the devastation of the mountain and the eyesore, but nothing compared to the noise. As they added more windmills on line, the louder it got.
If we got up in the middle of the night, we couldn’t get back to sleep. We closed the windows, the doors, had the furnace running and the drumming never stopped. On a foggy or snowy day, it was always worse. Our TV flickers with each turn of the blades.
We both spent those winter nights roaming around the house because we couldn’t sleep. Then, the less we slept, the angrier we would become because of the situation. When I went out the front door, a sense of rage would hit me that I have never known before. Even after 30 years of teaching, raising two boys and going through a divorce has never produced the kind of rage I feel when those windmills are pounding.
When our autistic, seizure-prone granddaughter comes to visit, we spend no time outdoors due to the shadowing effects and the strobing effects. The shadowing and strobing red lights are known to induce seizures. My husband and I have both had depression from sleep deprivation and worries about investments of land, etc. Insomnia has become a way of life for me. We are still on medications for these problems.
We are, by nature, outdoor people. Most of our days were spent outdoors with gardening, the dog or just drinking tea on the porch. Now we have to do what we have to and head inside and turn up the TV. We have had no choices. We have had this lifestyle forced on to us.
When they start talking about tax breaks for the townspeople, ours amounted to $151; we have lost our lifestyle forever. The windmill people are paying three to four mills to the town for taxes. We are paying 20 mills. ...
If we had our privacy invaded, been harassed or had trespassers on our land, it would be illegal. Because it is just noise, all we can do is live with it. If you live within two to three miles, I pity you because of the noise. If you live within 50 miles, I pity you because of the eyesore.
One more thing — if you use your ridge for recreational uses that will be gone. We are not allowed on that mountain at all. All access trails are gated or chained, with no trespassing signs everywhere, even along the top of the mountain, just in case someone does get up there. They will tell you it is up to the landowners that they rent from, but that is another lie. Even with signed permission slips from the owners, try to find a way up.
You will have a hard time to fight these because our government receives money. Our state is 100 percent for wind power for bragging rights that Maine is a forerunner in “green” and the Department of Environmental Protection works for the state and its boss is the governor. The DEP added an extra five decibels to the acceptable noise level so UPC would be in compliance to the application. Politics is a hard thing to fight.
But, one thing is for sure! Once they are up and running, no matter what you do, they are not coming down until they fall down, and certainly never in my lifetime.
We are not against wind power but strongly feel turbines have to be placed where the impact is less. They should never be within five miles of a dwelling. Also, money should be put in escrow to remove them when their earning power is gone or they are too expensive to repair. I worry about Maine becoming a windmill bone yard because no small town will ever be able to afford to remove them.
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism
I am a resident of Mars Hill, whose personal life and community life have been severely impacted by the nearby UPC Wind plant.
Here is my story:
My husband and I had moved away from Mars Hill, and our retirement dream was to come back to old friends, peace, quiet and country living. The first year after building our house back here was heaven. The quiet was so complete that we thought we had gone deaf. The wildlife on our lawn was so much fun.
We had heard about the windmills, but when we asked how they would affect us if we bought the land, the town manager told us we wouldn’t even see them, much less hear them because they were going to be on the front of the mountain.
We believed him. That was our biggest mistake. At the time, we had no idea that the town fathers had not even read the application that they had co-signed, nor hired a lawyer to explain it to them. They had no idea what they had agreed to. They believed everything UPC had told them.
The biggest lie of all was that there would be no noise, or you had to be within 500 feet to hear anything. I believe that is still the propaganda.
We had one winter of quiet solitude, then with the spring came giant bulldozers, and cranes took over our mountain. Roads three lanes wide were being cut through the trees. Blasting began. We never knew when they were going to blast. The windows shook and the ledge would land on our lawn because they wouldn’t use mats. The heavy equipment would start up before daylight and go late in the night.
What a shock it was to all of us when they blasted away the whole end of the mountain. The giant scar got bigger and bigger. Then were more huge scars across our beautiful mountain. The whole terrain was being devastated. ... The beauty and the access to the ridges would never be again. ...
The massive white giants started turning and were on line in March 2007. Our lives greatly changed that day. We had been upset over the blasting and the devastation of the mountain and the eyesore, but nothing compared to the noise. As they added more windmills on line, the louder it got.
If we got up in the middle of the night, we couldn’t get back to sleep. We closed the windows, the doors, had the furnace running and the drumming never stopped. On a foggy or snowy day, it was always worse. Our TV flickers with each turn of the blades.
We both spent those winter nights roaming around the house because we couldn’t sleep. Then, the less we slept, the angrier we would become because of the situation. When I went out the front door, a sense of rage would hit me that I have never known before. Even after 30 years of teaching, raising two boys and going through a divorce has never produced the kind of rage I feel when those windmills are pounding.
When our autistic, seizure-prone granddaughter comes to visit, we spend no time outdoors due to the shadowing effects and the strobing effects. The shadowing and strobing red lights are known to induce seizures. My husband and I have both had depression from sleep deprivation and worries about investments of land, etc. Insomnia has become a way of life for me. We are still on medications for these problems.
We are, by nature, outdoor people. Most of our days were spent outdoors with gardening, the dog or just drinking tea on the porch. Now we have to do what we have to and head inside and turn up the TV. We have had no choices. We have had this lifestyle forced on to us.
When they start talking about tax breaks for the townspeople, ours amounted to $151; we have lost our lifestyle forever. The windmill people are paying three to four mills to the town for taxes. We are paying 20 mills. ...
If we had our privacy invaded, been harassed or had trespassers on our land, it would be illegal. Because it is just noise, all we can do is live with it. If you live within two to three miles, I pity you because of the noise. If you live within 50 miles, I pity you because of the eyesore.
One more thing — if you use your ridge for recreational uses that will be gone. We are not allowed on that mountain at all. All access trails are gated or chained, with no trespassing signs everywhere, even along the top of the mountain, just in case someone does get up there. They will tell you it is up to the landowners that they rent from, but that is another lie. Even with signed permission slips from the owners, try to find a way up.
You will have a hard time to fight these because our government receives money. Our state is 100 percent for wind power for bragging rights that Maine is a forerunner in “green” and the Department of Environmental Protection works for the state and its boss is the governor. The DEP added an extra five decibels to the acceptable noise level so UPC would be in compliance to the application. Politics is a hard thing to fight.
But, one thing is for sure! Once they are up and running, no matter what you do, they are not coming down until they fall down, and certainly never in my lifetime.
We are not against wind power but strongly feel turbines have to be placed where the impact is less. They should never be within five miles of a dwelling. Also, money should be put in escrow to remove them when their earning power is gone or they are too expensive to repair. I worry about Maine becoming a windmill bone yard because no small town will ever be able to afford to remove them.
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism
June 4, 2008
New transmission lines needed to shunt wind around
From the Union for the Co-ordination of Transmission of Electricity Transmission Development Plan, 2008 (click title of this post):
The amount and location of wind generation capacity is important for transmission network development issues, because highly volatile power output (between maximal rated power and almost nil when wind conditions are unfavourable) is inherent to this generation process, with a typical associated load factor much lower than that of thermal units. In addition, regarding the location, new wind farms are usually located in areas with poor transmission networks, so new lines and infrastructure need to be planned in order to be able to evacuate this generation capacity. The consequence is that highly contrasted and variable power flows can be experienced on the transmission network, particularly if the wind farms are concentrated in neighbouring areas.
tags: wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism
The amount and location of wind generation capacity is important for transmission network development issues, because highly volatile power output (between maximal rated power and almost nil when wind conditions are unfavourable) is inherent to this generation process, with a typical associated load factor much lower than that of thermal units. In addition, regarding the location, new wind farms are usually located in areas with poor transmission networks, so new lines and infrastructure need to be planned in order to be able to evacuate this generation capacity. The consequence is that highly contrasted and variable power flows can be experienced on the transmission network, particularly if the wind farms are concentrated in neighbouring areas.
tags: wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism
June 3, 2008
Leap of logic in call for wind energy tax credits
"[Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius] said the federal government should accelerate wind power goals, and renew tax credits for renewable energy to decrease climate-changing carbon dioxide emissions."
There is a gaping hole in the logic there. The stated goal is "to decrease climate-changing carbon dioxide emissions".
But the tax credits are demanded for wind power. It is unspoken but assumed that wind power achieves the carbon dioxide goal. But that is unproven and untested. It is a false premise.
The tax credits should be to support the goal: "to decrease climate-changing carbon dioxide emissions". If wind power achieves that goal, then it would benefit.
Instead, the credits are designed to favor a specific industry, whether or not it actually contributes to the stated goal, and at the expense of other -- possibly more effective -- means of achieving the goal.
tags: wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism
There is a gaping hole in the logic there. The stated goal is "to decrease climate-changing carbon dioxide emissions".
But the tax credits are demanded for wind power. It is unspoken but assumed that wind power achieves the carbon dioxide goal. But that is unproven and untested. It is a false premise.
The tax credits should be to support the goal: "to decrease climate-changing carbon dioxide emissions". If wind power achieves that goal, then it would benefit.
Instead, the credits are designed to favor a specific industry, whether or not it actually contributes to the stated goal, and at the expense of other -- possibly more effective -- means of achieving the goal.
tags: wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism
May 29, 2008
Why can't UPC Wind close a deal with Vermont utilities?
During the process leading up the Public Service Board (PSB) approval on August 8 last year of UPC's proposed 40-MW wind energy facility in Sheffield, Vt., Washington Electric Co-op (WEC) was a vocal supporter that hoped to benefit from the power. The Army Corps of Engineers halted activity on the project, however, until they could properly assess its effect on wetlands, and Ridge Protectors appealed the approval to the Vt. Supreme Court.
As reported in last week's Barton Chronicle, the PSB set several conditions for their approval, one of which was that UPC "seek" stable price contracts with Vermont utilities for all of the electricity production. It turns out that they have so far failed in their quest for such contracts, even with WEC.
UPC is arguing that they have indeed "sought" to secure the contracts (although I don't think any paperwork to prove even that contention has been presented), and that is all that the condition required.
But the failure reveals the Enron-type shell game essential to big wind's "success".
The rejected East Haven project gained the local utility's (Lyndonville Electric Dept. (LED)) support by essentially letting them skim some of the profits. The wind plant would sell its production to the New England grid, who would send the check to LED, who would take out 5% and send the money on to the wind company. The wind company (Mathew Rubin and Dave Rapaport) thus claimed that they were selling the electricity to LED at 5% below market rates.
A similar arrangement was apparently planned between UPC and WEC, but it fails the requirement for a stable price contract for two reasons. First, the market rate is not stable, and second, it would not be a contract for actually providing WEC with electricity. And there, apparently, is the rub. A direct contract for power is problematic, because power from the wind is variable, intermittent, and significantly unpredictable. What would WEC be contracting for?
Feeding the Sheffield plant's production into WEC's grid would seriously destabilize it, so it would have to go into the much larger New England (where it might represent a very small increase in voltage and could simply be ignored). So WEC would have to procure a stable price contract with the New England grid for an unpredictable amount of power (representing that fed into it by the Sheffield plant), or it would have to arrange a price with UPC above which UPC would pay the balance to WEC's charges from the grid for the amount of power fed in by the Sheffield plant.
Taking a cut to look the other way is so much easier!
tags: wind power, wind energy, wind farms, Vermont
As reported in last week's Barton Chronicle, the PSB set several conditions for their approval, one of which was that UPC "seek" stable price contracts with Vermont utilities for all of the electricity production. It turns out that they have so far failed in their quest for such contracts, even with WEC.
UPC is arguing that they have indeed "sought" to secure the contracts (although I don't think any paperwork to prove even that contention has been presented), and that is all that the condition required.
But the failure reveals the Enron-type shell game essential to big wind's "success".
The rejected East Haven project gained the local utility's (Lyndonville Electric Dept. (LED)) support by essentially letting them skim some of the profits. The wind plant would sell its production to the New England grid, who would send the check to LED, who would take out 5% and send the money on to the wind company. The wind company (Mathew Rubin and Dave Rapaport) thus claimed that they were selling the electricity to LED at 5% below market rates.
A similar arrangement was apparently planned between UPC and WEC, but it fails the requirement for a stable price contract for two reasons. First, the market rate is not stable, and second, it would not be a contract for actually providing WEC with electricity. And there, apparently, is the rub. A direct contract for power is problematic, because power from the wind is variable, intermittent, and significantly unpredictable. What would WEC be contracting for?
Feeding the Sheffield plant's production into WEC's grid would seriously destabilize it, so it would have to go into the much larger New England (where it might represent a very small increase in voltage and could simply be ignored). So WEC would have to procure a stable price contract with the New England grid for an unpredictable amount of power (representing that fed into it by the Sheffield plant), or it would have to arrange a price with UPC above which UPC would pay the balance to WEC's charges from the grid for the amount of power fed in by the Sheffield plant.
Taking a cut to look the other way is so much easier!
tags: wind power, wind energy, wind farms, Vermont
May 13, 2008
Hillary Clinton and masculine anxiety
Good essay by Stephen Ducat at Huffington Post (click on title of this post):
In applying the GOP approach to feminizing male opponents, and directing class resentment away from the real elites, Hillary Clinton has gone beyond her more familiar adoption of the ruthless, sociopathic say-anything, dirty tricks politics of her erstwhile Rovian right wing enemies. She is reinforcing the conservative attempt to equate manhood with belligerence and predation. In addition, she is trotting out the well worn but still effective propaganda technique employed by this country's actual ruling oligarchy of wealth -- reducing class to personal style, taste, or the specific products people consume (brie versus Velveeta). Those who actually own or wield control over our shared resources are rendered invisible in this rhetorical sleight of hand.
Barack Obama stands in stark contrast to the attitude of the Clinton campaign. His guiding political ethos has always been one of bridging but not overlooking divisions, while privileging dialogue, debate, and negotiation over conquest. This is not only a new politics. It is a new masculinity, one that is inclusive of those panhuman qualities previously disowned and projected onto women. It remains to be seen if Hillary Clinton, with her Hobbesian hard-on, will succeed in turning the Denver convention into a war of all against all. If so, the life span of the Democratic Party may be nasty, brutish, and short.
human rights
In applying the GOP approach to feminizing male opponents, and directing class resentment away from the real elites, Hillary Clinton has gone beyond her more familiar adoption of the ruthless, sociopathic say-anything, dirty tricks politics of her erstwhile Rovian right wing enemies. She is reinforcing the conservative attempt to equate manhood with belligerence and predation. In addition, she is trotting out the well worn but still effective propaganda technique employed by this country's actual ruling oligarchy of wealth -- reducing class to personal style, taste, or the specific products people consume (brie versus Velveeta). Those who actually own or wield control over our shared resources are rendered invisible in this rhetorical sleight of hand.
Barack Obama stands in stark contrast to the attitude of the Clinton campaign. His guiding political ethos has always been one of bridging but not overlooking divisions, while privileging dialogue, debate, and negotiation over conquest. This is not only a new politics. It is a new masculinity, one that is inclusive of those panhuman qualities previously disowned and projected onto women. It remains to be seen if Hillary Clinton, with her Hobbesian hard-on, will succeed in turning the Denver convention into a war of all against all. If so, the life span of the Democratic Party may be nasty, brutish, and short.
human rights
May 9, 2008
Today's lesson
When you insist that the ends justify the means, you will discover that the ends in fact are defined by the means, that you have made the means the end in themselves.
May 8, 2008
Hillary Clinton, George Wallace
Hillary Clinton, in an interview yesterday with USA Today, referred to her appeal among "working, hard-working Americans, white Americans". She cited this as proof of her "much broader base to build a winning coalition on". Yet she has lost, after a long consistent record of losing in this presidential primary.
She sounds like George Wallace, who broke with the Democratic party to make an independent run for President in 1968 to exploit anti-desegregation sentiment. There's always someone who will take advantage of the worst parts of our character instead of acting to strengthen the better parts.
The phrase "working, hard-working Americans, white Americans" clarifies her meaning at each comma-demarcated step, to assert that white Americans are the only hard-working Americans, indeed the only Americans who do any real work.
During the knickers-twisting over Jeremiah Wright, Pat Buchanan, who regularly says much more "anti-American" things than Wright did, was similarly seething mostly because Wright did not show sufficient appreciation to everything "we" (Americans, i.e., whites) have given "them" (blacks, i.e., Americans only by the magnanimous indulgence of whites).
And so here is Hillary Clinton, "appealing" to the same bigotry, to "white" America as the "real" America, working from the notion that it's "whites" who do all the real work so everyone else can enjoy their freedom and prosperity, which they only abuse by actually thinking that they, too, are Americans and have some right to speak out and even to lead.
American Independent Party: here she comes!
She sounds like George Wallace, who broke with the Democratic party to make an independent run for President in 1968 to exploit anti-desegregation sentiment. There's always someone who will take advantage of the worst parts of our character instead of acting to strengthen the better parts.
The phrase "working, hard-working Americans, white Americans" clarifies her meaning at each comma-demarcated step, to assert that white Americans are the only hard-working Americans, indeed the only Americans who do any real work.
During the knickers-twisting over Jeremiah Wright, Pat Buchanan, who regularly says much more "anti-American" things than Wright did, was similarly seething mostly because Wright did not show sufficient appreciation to everything "we" (Americans, i.e., whites) have given "them" (blacks, i.e., Americans only by the magnanimous indulgence of whites).
And so here is Hillary Clinton, "appealing" to the same bigotry, to "white" America as the "real" America, working from the notion that it's "whites" who do all the real work so everyone else can enjoy their freedom and prosperity, which they only abuse by actually thinking that they, too, are Americans and have some right to speak out and even to lead.
American Independent Party: here she comes!
May 4, 2008
It's not all about race, it's fascism vs. dissent
John Hagee and Jerry Falwell have said much worse things than Jeremiah Wright, hateful twisted things. But they direct their wrath towards the disenfanchised and oppressed, not on their behalf, as Jeremiah Wright (like Martin Luther King) has. The right-wing religious do not threaten the powerful. They help to consolidate a paranoiac and retrograde vision of power that is represented in authoritarianism and totalitarianism, empire and military might, and an absence of meaningful debate. They reinforce the majority mob with racism, sexism, xenophobia, and even speciesism. They represent the reactionary forces that recoil from positive change, from real democracy and a nation of freedom and justice.
Jeremiah Wright is doubly cursed for defining himself in terms of the unique history of Africans in this country and thus for reminding Americans of that shameful history, noting that it is not an aberration but a pattern, and that we reap what we sow.
Wright places the blame with the powerful, not with those who have no power. That is unacceptable.
human rights
Jeremiah Wright is doubly cursed for defining himself in terms of the unique history of Africans in this country and thus for reminding Americans of that shameful history, noting that it is not an aberration but a pattern, and that we reap what we sow.
Wright places the blame with the powerful, not with those who have no power. That is unacceptable.
human rights
May 3, 2008
Which means it is all about race ...
Bill Moyers Journal, May 2 (click the title of this post for the complete commentary):
Behold the double standard: John McCain sought out the endorsement of John Hagee, the war-mongering Catholic-bashing Texas preacher, who said the people of New Orleans got what they deserved for their sins. But no one suggests McCain shares Hagee's delusions, or thinks AIDS is God's punishment for homosexuality. Pat Robertson called for the assassination of a foreign head of state and asked God to remove Supreme Court justices, yet he remains a force in the Republican religious right. After 9/11 Jerry Falwell said the attack was God's judgment on America for having been driven out of our schools and the public square, but when McCain goes after the endorsement of a preacher he once condemned as an agent of intolerance, the press gives him a pass.
Jon Stewart recently played a tape from the Nixon white house in which Billy Graham talks in the oval office about how he has friends who are Jewish, but he knows in his heart that they are undermining America. This is crazy and wrong -- white preachers are given leeway in politics that others aren't.
Which means it is all about race, isn't it? Wright's offensive opinions and inflammatory appearances are judged differently. He doesn't fire a shot in anger, put a noose around anyone's neck, call for insurrection, or plant a bomb in a church with children in Sunday school. What he does is to speak his mind in a language and style that unsettles some people, and says some things so outlandish and ill-advised that he finally leaves Obama no choice but to end their friendship. Politics often exposes us to the corroding acid of the politics of personal destruction, but I've never seen anything like this — this wrenching break between pastor and parishioner. Both men no doubt will carry the grief to their graves. All the rest of us should hang our heads in shame for letting it come to this in America, where the gluttony of the non-stop media grinder consumes us all and prevents an honest conversation on race. It is the price we are paying for failing to heed the great historian Jacob Burckhardt, who said "beware the terrible simplifiers".
human rights
Behold the double standard: John McCain sought out the endorsement of John Hagee, the war-mongering Catholic-bashing Texas preacher, who said the people of New Orleans got what they deserved for their sins. But no one suggests McCain shares Hagee's delusions, or thinks AIDS is God's punishment for homosexuality. Pat Robertson called for the assassination of a foreign head of state and asked God to remove Supreme Court justices, yet he remains a force in the Republican religious right. After 9/11 Jerry Falwell said the attack was God's judgment on America for having been driven out of our schools and the public square, but when McCain goes after the endorsement of a preacher he once condemned as an agent of intolerance, the press gives him a pass.
Jon Stewart recently played a tape from the Nixon white house in which Billy Graham talks in the oval office about how he has friends who are Jewish, but he knows in his heart that they are undermining America. This is crazy and wrong -- white preachers are given leeway in politics that others aren't.
Which means it is all about race, isn't it? Wright's offensive opinions and inflammatory appearances are judged differently. He doesn't fire a shot in anger, put a noose around anyone's neck, call for insurrection, or plant a bomb in a church with children in Sunday school. What he does is to speak his mind in a language and style that unsettles some people, and says some things so outlandish and ill-advised that he finally leaves Obama no choice but to end their friendship. Politics often exposes us to the corroding acid of the politics of personal destruction, but I've never seen anything like this — this wrenching break between pastor and parishioner. Both men no doubt will carry the grief to their graves. All the rest of us should hang our heads in shame for letting it come to this in America, where the gluttony of the non-stop media grinder consumes us all and prevents an honest conversation on race. It is the price we are paying for failing to heed the great historian Jacob Burckhardt, who said "beware the terrible simplifiers".
human rights
April 28, 2008
A Time to Break Silence
As I have walked among the desperate, rejected and angry young men I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they asked -- and rightly so -- what about Vietnam? They asked if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government. ...
Now, it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read Vietnam. It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over. So it is that those of us who are yet determined that America will be are led down the path of protest and dissent, working for the health of our land. ...
We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for victims of our nation and for those it calls enemy, for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers. ...
Strange Liberators
The only change came from America as we increased our troop commitments in support of governments which were singularly corrupt, inept and without popular support. All the while the people read our leaflets and received regular promises of peace and democracy -- and land reform. Now they languish under our bombs and consider us -- not their fellow Vietnamese --the real enemy. They move sadly and apathetically as we herd them off the land of their fathers into concentration camps where minimal social needs are rarely met. They know they must move or be destroyed by our bombs. So they go -- primarily women and children and the aged.
They watch as we poison their water, as we kill a million acres of their crops. They must weep as the bulldozers roar through their areas preparing to destroy the precious trees. They wander into the hospitals, with at least twenty casualties from American firepower for one "Vietcong"-inflicted injury. So far we may have killed a million of them -- mostly children. They wander into the towns and see thousands of the children, homeless, without clothes, running in packs on the streets like animals. They see the children, degraded by our soldiers as they beg for food. They see the children selling their sisters to our soldiers, soliciting for their mothers.
What do the peasants think as we ally ourselves with the landlords and as we refuse to put any action into our many words concerning land reform? What do they think as we test our latest weapons on them, just as the Germans tested out new medicine and new tortures in the concentration camps of Europe? Where are the roots of the independent Vietnam we claim to be building? Is it among these voiceless ones?
We have destroyed their two most cherished institutions: the family and the village. We have destroyed their land and their crops. We have cooperated in the crushing of the nation's only non-Communist revolutionary political force -- the unified Buddhist church. We have supported the enemies of the peasants of Saigon. We have corrupted their women and children and killed their men. What liberators?
Now there is little left to build on -- save bitterness. Soon the only solid physical foundations remaining will be found at our military bases and in the concrete of the concentration camps we call fortified hamlets. The peasants may well wonder if we plan to build our new Vietnam on such grounds as these? Could we blame them for such thoughts? We must speak for them and raise the questions they cannot raise. These too are our brothers. ...
When we ask why they do not leap to negotiate, these things must be remembered. ...
We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after a short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved. Before long they must know that their government has sent them into a struggle among Vietnamese, and the more sophisticated surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy and the secure while we create hell for the poor. ...
This Madness Must Cease
The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve. It demands that we admit that we have been wrong from the beginning of our adventure in Vietnam, that we have been detrimental to the life of the Vietnamese people. The situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways. ...
Protesting The War
The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality we will find ourselves organizing clergy- and laymen-concerned committees for the next generation. They will be concerned about Guatemala and Peru. They will be concerned about Thailand and Cambodia. They will be concerned about Mozambique and South Africa. We will be marching for these and a dozen other names and attending rallies without end unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy. ...
During the past ten years we have seen emerge a pattern of suppression which now has justified the presence of U.S. military "advisors" in Venezuela. This need to maintain social stability for our investments accounts for the counter-revolutionary action of American forces in Guatemala. It tells why American helicopters are being used against guerrillas in Colombia and why American napalm and green beret forces have already been active against rebels in Peru. It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken -- the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investment.
I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered. ...
A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. n the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life's roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say: "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of people normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. ...
The People Are Important
These are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression and out of the wombs of a frail world new systems of justice and equality are being born. The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up as never before. "The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light." We in the West must support these revolutions. It is a sad fact that, because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, and our proneness to adjust to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch anti-revolutionaries. This has driven many to feel that only Marxism has the revolutionary spirit. Therefore, communism is a judgement against our failure to make democracy real and follow through on the revolutions we initiated. ...
Now, it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read Vietnam. It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over. So it is that those of us who are yet determined that America will be are led down the path of protest and dissent, working for the health of our land. ...
We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for victims of our nation and for those it calls enemy, for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers. ...
Strange Liberators
The only change came from America as we increased our troop commitments in support of governments which were singularly corrupt, inept and without popular support. All the while the people read our leaflets and received regular promises of peace and democracy -- and land reform. Now they languish under our bombs and consider us -- not their fellow Vietnamese --the real enemy. They move sadly and apathetically as we herd them off the land of their fathers into concentration camps where minimal social needs are rarely met. They know they must move or be destroyed by our bombs. So they go -- primarily women and children and the aged.
They watch as we poison their water, as we kill a million acres of their crops. They must weep as the bulldozers roar through their areas preparing to destroy the precious trees. They wander into the hospitals, with at least twenty casualties from American firepower for one "Vietcong"-inflicted injury. So far we may have killed a million of them -- mostly children. They wander into the towns and see thousands of the children, homeless, without clothes, running in packs on the streets like animals. They see the children, degraded by our soldiers as they beg for food. They see the children selling their sisters to our soldiers, soliciting for their mothers.
What do the peasants think as we ally ourselves with the landlords and as we refuse to put any action into our many words concerning land reform? What do they think as we test our latest weapons on them, just as the Germans tested out new medicine and new tortures in the concentration camps of Europe? Where are the roots of the independent Vietnam we claim to be building? Is it among these voiceless ones?
We have destroyed their two most cherished institutions: the family and the village. We have destroyed their land and their crops. We have cooperated in the crushing of the nation's only non-Communist revolutionary political force -- the unified Buddhist church. We have supported the enemies of the peasants of Saigon. We have corrupted their women and children and killed their men. What liberators?
Now there is little left to build on -- save bitterness. Soon the only solid physical foundations remaining will be found at our military bases and in the concrete of the concentration camps we call fortified hamlets. The peasants may well wonder if we plan to build our new Vietnam on such grounds as these? Could we blame them for such thoughts? We must speak for them and raise the questions they cannot raise. These too are our brothers. ...
When we ask why they do not leap to negotiate, these things must be remembered. ...
We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after a short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved. Before long they must know that their government has sent them into a struggle among Vietnamese, and the more sophisticated surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy and the secure while we create hell for the poor. ...
This Madness Must Cease
The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve. It demands that we admit that we have been wrong from the beginning of our adventure in Vietnam, that we have been detrimental to the life of the Vietnamese people. The situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways. ...
Protesting The War
The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality we will find ourselves organizing clergy- and laymen-concerned committees for the next generation. They will be concerned about Guatemala and Peru. They will be concerned about Thailand and Cambodia. They will be concerned about Mozambique and South Africa. We will be marching for these and a dozen other names and attending rallies without end unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy. ...
During the past ten years we have seen emerge a pattern of suppression which now has justified the presence of U.S. military "advisors" in Venezuela. This need to maintain social stability for our investments accounts for the counter-revolutionary action of American forces in Guatemala. It tells why American helicopters are being used against guerrillas in Colombia and why American napalm and green beret forces have already been active against rebels in Peru. It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken -- the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investment.
I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered. ...
A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. n the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life's roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say: "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of people normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. ...
The People Are Important
These are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression and out of the wombs of a frail world new systems of justice and equality are being born. The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up as never before. "The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light." We in the West must support these revolutions. It is a sad fact that, because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, and our proneness to adjust to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch anti-revolutionaries. This has driven many to feel that only Marxism has the revolutionary spirit. Therefore, communism is a judgement against our failure to make democracy real and follow through on the revolutions we initiated. ...
--Martin Luther King, April 4, 1967, Riverside Church, New York
human rights
April 26, 2008
A call to humility and acknowledgement of reality
Where governments lie, God does not lie. Where governments change, God does not change. And I'm through now. But let me leave you with one more thing. Governments fail. The government in this text comprised of Caesar, Cornelius, Pontius Pilate - the Roman government failed. The British government used to rule from East to West. The British government had a Union Jack. She colonized Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Hong Kong. Her navies ruled the seven seas all the way down to the tip of Argentina in the Falklands, but the British government failed. The Russian government failed. The Japanese government failed. The German government failed. And the United States of America government, when it came to treating her citizens of Indian descent fairly, she failed. She put them on reservations. When it came to treating her citizens of Japanese descent fairly, she failed. She put them in internment prison camps. When it came to treating citizens of African descent fairly, America failed. She put them in chains. The government put them on slave quarters, put them on auction blocks, put them in cotton fields, put them in inferior schools, put them in substandard housing, put them in scientific experiments, put them in the lowest paying jobs, put them outside the equal protection of the law, kept them out of their racist bastions of higher education and locked them into position of hopelessness and helplessness. The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strikes law, and then wants us to sing God bless America? No, no, no. Not God bless America; God damn America! That's in the Bible, for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating her citizens as less than human. God damn America as long as she keeps trying to act like she is God and she is supreme!
--Jeremiah Wright
human rights
When America's chickens came home to roost
The people of faith have moved from the hatred of armed enemies, these soldiers who captured the king, those soldiers who slaughtered his son and put his eyes out, the soldiers who sacked the city, burned the towns, burned the temples, burned the towers, and moved from the hatred for armed enemies to the hatred of unarmed innocents, the babies, the babies. "Blessed are they who dash your baby's brains against a rock." And that my beloved is a dangerous place to be. Yet, that is where the people of faith are in 551 BC and that is where far too many people of faith are in 2001 AD. We have moved from the hatred of armed enemies to the hatred of unarmed innocents. We want revenge. We want paybacks and we don't care who gets hurt in the process.
I heard Ambassador Peck on an interview yesterday. Did anybody else see him or hear him? He was on Fox news. This is a white man and he was upsetting the Fox news commentators to no end. He pointed out - an Ambassador! - he pointed out that what Malcolm X said when he got silenced by Elijah Mohammad was in fact true. America's chickens are coming home to roost! We took this country by terror away from the Sioux, the Apache, the Arawak, the Comanche, the Arapaho, the Navajo. Terrorism! We took Africans from their country to build our way of ease and kept them enslaved and living in fear. Terrorism! We bombed Grenada and killed innocent civilians, babies, non-military personnel. We bombed the black civilian community of Panama with stealth bombers and killed unarmed teenagers and toddlers, pregnant mothers and hard-working fathers. We bombed Gadafi's home and killed his child. "Blessed are they who bash your children's heads against a rock!" We bombed Iraq. We killed unarmed civilians trying to make a living. We bombed a plant in Sudan to pay back for the attack on our embassy. Killed hundreds of hard-working people; mothers and fathers who left home to go work that day, not knowing that they would never get back home. We bombed Hiroshima! We bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon. And we never batted an eye! Kids playing in the playground, mothers picking up children after school, civilians - not soldiers - people just trying to make it day by day. We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and Black South Africans, and now we are indignant? Because the stuff we have done overseas has now been brought back into our own front yards! America's chickens are coming home to roost! Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred and terrorism begets terrorism. A White Ambassador said that, y'all, not a Black Militant. Not a Reverend who preaches about racism. An Ambassador whose eyes are wide open, and who's trying to get us to wake up and move away from this dangerous precipice upon which we are now poised ...
human rights
I heard Ambassador Peck on an interview yesterday. Did anybody else see him or hear him? He was on Fox news. This is a white man and he was upsetting the Fox news commentators to no end. He pointed out - an Ambassador! - he pointed out that what Malcolm X said when he got silenced by Elijah Mohammad was in fact true. America's chickens are coming home to roost! We took this country by terror away from the Sioux, the Apache, the Arawak, the Comanche, the Arapaho, the Navajo. Terrorism! We took Africans from their country to build our way of ease and kept them enslaved and living in fear. Terrorism! We bombed Grenada and killed innocent civilians, babies, non-military personnel. We bombed the black civilian community of Panama with stealth bombers and killed unarmed teenagers and toddlers, pregnant mothers and hard-working fathers. We bombed Gadafi's home and killed his child. "Blessed are they who bash your children's heads against a rock!" We bombed Iraq. We killed unarmed civilians trying to make a living. We bombed a plant in Sudan to pay back for the attack on our embassy. Killed hundreds of hard-working people; mothers and fathers who left home to go work that day, not knowing that they would never get back home. We bombed Hiroshima! We bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon. And we never batted an eye! Kids playing in the playground, mothers picking up children after school, civilians - not soldiers - people just trying to make it day by day. We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and Black South Africans, and now we are indignant? Because the stuff we have done overseas has now been brought back into our own front yards! America's chickens are coming home to roost! Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred and terrorism begets terrorism. A White Ambassador said that, y'all, not a Black Militant. Not a Reverend who preaches about racism. An Ambassador whose eyes are wide open, and who's trying to get us to wake up and move away from this dangerous precipice upon which we are now poised ...
--Jeremiah Wright, Sept. 16, 2001
[One week before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the U.S. walked out of the World Conference on Racism in Durban, South Africa, to prevent discussion of Israel's treatment of its Palestinian population.]human rights
Jeremiah Wright on Bill Moyers Journal
By the rivers of Babylon,
There we sat down, yea, we wept,
When we remembered Zion.
Upon the willows in the midst thereof
We hanged up our harps.
For there they that led us captive asked of us words of song,
And our tormentors asked of us mirth:
'Sing us one of the songs of Zion.'
How shall we sing the Lord's song
In a foreign land?
If I forget thee, O Jerusalem,
Let my right hand forget her cunning.
Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth,
If I remember thee not;
If I set not Jerusalem
Above my chiefest joy.
Remember, O Lord, against the children of Edom
The day of Jerusalem;
Who said: 'Rase it, rase it,
Even to the foundation thereof.'
O daughter of Babylon, that art to be destroyed;
Happy shall he be, that repayeth thee
As thou hast served us.
Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones
Against the rock.
human rights
There we sat down, yea, we wept,
When we remembered Zion.
Upon the willows in the midst thereof
We hanged up our harps.
For there they that led us captive asked of us words of song,
And our tormentors asked of us mirth:
'Sing us one of the songs of Zion.'
How shall we sing the Lord's song
In a foreign land?
If I forget thee, O Jerusalem,
Let my right hand forget her cunning.
Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth,
If I remember thee not;
If I set not Jerusalem
Above my chiefest joy.
Remember, O Lord, against the children of Edom
The day of Jerusalem;
Who said: 'Rase it, rase it,
Even to the foundation thereof.'
O daughter of Babylon, that art to be destroyed;
Happy shall he be, that repayeth thee
As thou hast served us.
Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones
Against the rock.
--Psalm 137
[Hint: Righteous, anger, bitterness, and desire for vengeance too easily justifies the killing of innocents and blinds us to our own sins.]human rights
Economies of Meat
Re “Million-Dollar Meat” (New York Times editorial, April 23):
To the Editor:
In vitro meat might not appeal to everyone, but I am guessing that the day PETA awards its prize money will be a happy day for the billions of land animals bound for slaughter.
We can treasure the cultural and historical bond between animals and domesticated animals only by ignoring the emotional bond. Children naturally love animals, but the many “uses we have found for them” lead us to teach our children to save their compassion for companion animals exclusively.
We encourage kids to gently pet baby lambs, cows, chickens and pigs, but we deny them this loving connection when we serve animals for dinner by surreptitiously calling them chops, hamburger, nuggets and bacon.
There is no happy ending for even the most humanely raised animal. And there is no good reason to breed, confine and kill animals for food unless we believe that economic benefit justifies killing. More and more people do not. We call ourselves vegetarians.
Patti Breitman
Fairfax, Calif., April 23, 2008
•
You suggest that the raising of animals for food should be done “in ways that are both ethical and environmentally sound.” This is asking for the impossible.
More than nine billion chickens are slaughtered each year in the United States. When you treat animals as objects on an assembly line, it is not possible to provide for their basic needs.
You argue that we must treasure a “cultural and historical bond” between us and those we eat. But that bond is based on exploitation and abuse.
If domesticated animals “exist only because of the uses we have found for them,” let me ask you: Would you have recommended 150 years ago that we preserve and treasure the bond between whites and their black slaves — and develop a more humane slave trade?
Vadim Liberman
New York, April 23, 2008
human rights, animal rights, vegetarianism
To the Editor:
In vitro meat might not appeal to everyone, but I am guessing that the day PETA awards its prize money will be a happy day for the billions of land animals bound for slaughter.
We can treasure the cultural and historical bond between animals and domesticated animals only by ignoring the emotional bond. Children naturally love animals, but the many “uses we have found for them” lead us to teach our children to save their compassion for companion animals exclusively.
We encourage kids to gently pet baby lambs, cows, chickens and pigs, but we deny them this loving connection when we serve animals for dinner by surreptitiously calling them chops, hamburger, nuggets and bacon.
There is no happy ending for even the most humanely raised animal. And there is no good reason to breed, confine and kill animals for food unless we believe that economic benefit justifies killing. More and more people do not. We call ourselves vegetarians.
Patti Breitman
Fairfax, Calif., April 23, 2008
•
You suggest that the raising of animals for food should be done “in ways that are both ethical and environmentally sound.” This is asking for the impossible.
More than nine billion chickens are slaughtered each year in the United States. When you treat animals as objects on an assembly line, it is not possible to provide for their basic needs.
You argue that we must treasure a “cultural and historical bond” between us and those we eat. But that bond is based on exploitation and abuse.
If domesticated animals “exist only because of the uses we have found for them,” let me ask you: Would you have recommended 150 years ago that we preserve and treasure the bond between whites and their black slaves — and develop a more humane slave trade?
Vadim Liberman
New York, April 23, 2008
human rights, animal rights, vegetarianism
April 25, 2008
First Draft of Maya Angelou's Open Letter Supporting Hillary Clinton
Dear Friend:
I am writing to tell you about my friend, Hillary Clinton, and why I am standing with her in her campaign for the presidency in 2012 after she ruins Senator Obama and the Democratic party this year. I know the kind of president Hillary Clinton will be because I know dozens of the personalities she has assumed over the years.
I am inspired by her insincerity and her dishonesty. She is a reliable and trustworthy opportunist. She is someone I not only fear but one for whom I have profound worry regarding stability.
Hillary does not waver in standing up for her prerogative. She has always been a passionate protector of her husband's sexual appetites. As a child, she was taught that all Iraq's children are politically expedient, and as a mother, she understood that her child wasn't safe unless all Iranians were obliterated. As I wrote about Hillary recently in a praise song: "She is the slayer of every hope and every man who longs for fair play, botcher of health care, champion of NAFTA and Wal-Mart."
It may be easy to view Hillary Clinton through the narrow lens of those who would ask her to explain her lies. Hillary sees us as we are, black and brown and white and yellow and pink and relishes our differences knowing that fundamentally we are all exploitable. She is able to look through complexion and see hollow wedge issues.
She has endured great scrutiny, and still is barely scrutinized. Hillary Clinton will not give up on you, unless you are a caucus-goer or black. She is a long-distance runner even though she previously agreed that the race should be a sprint. I am honored to say I am with her until her loss is so obvious that it would be an act of transcendent madness for even Carville to claim otherwise.
I am supporting Hillary Clinton because I know that she will make the most positive difference in the lives of corporate donors and she will help our country continue to be what it currently is. Whether you are her supporter, leaning towards her, undecided, or supporting someone else, I believe Hillary Clinton will never forget anyone who didn't fall in line - and she will make you pay. It is no small thing that along the way we will repeat history together.
Vote for Hillary Clinton and show your support at www.hillaryclinton.com. I know she will make use of her power.
[Satire from 236.com; but not far from reality: see Angelou's video endorsement from last year and her more recent "poem" and comments ("You may write me down in history / With your bitter, twisted lies, / You may tread me in the very dirt / But still, like dust, I'll rise."). While we're on the subject, don't miss the old "Stale" parody, "I, Poem".]
I am writing to tell you about my friend, Hillary Clinton, and why I am standing with her in her campaign for the presidency in 2012 after she ruins Senator Obama and the Democratic party this year. I know the kind of president Hillary Clinton will be because I know dozens of the personalities she has assumed over the years.
I am inspired by her insincerity and her dishonesty. She is a reliable and trustworthy opportunist. She is someone I not only fear but one for whom I have profound worry regarding stability.
Hillary does not waver in standing up for her prerogative. She has always been a passionate protector of her husband's sexual appetites. As a child, she was taught that all Iraq's children are politically expedient, and as a mother, she understood that her child wasn't safe unless all Iranians were obliterated. As I wrote about Hillary recently in a praise song: "She is the slayer of every hope and every man who longs for fair play, botcher of health care, champion of NAFTA and Wal-Mart."
It may be easy to view Hillary Clinton through the narrow lens of those who would ask her to explain her lies. Hillary sees us as we are, black and brown and white and yellow and pink and relishes our differences knowing that fundamentally we are all exploitable. She is able to look through complexion and see hollow wedge issues.
She has endured great scrutiny, and still is barely scrutinized. Hillary Clinton will not give up on you, unless you are a caucus-goer or black. She is a long-distance runner even though she previously agreed that the race should be a sprint. I am honored to say I am with her until her loss is so obvious that it would be an act of transcendent madness for even Carville to claim otherwise.
I am supporting Hillary Clinton because I know that she will make the most positive difference in the lives of corporate donors and she will help our country continue to be what it currently is. Whether you are her supporter, leaning towards her, undecided, or supporting someone else, I believe Hillary Clinton will never forget anyone who didn't fall in line - and she will make you pay. It is no small thing that along the way we will repeat history together.
Vote for Hillary Clinton and show your support at www.hillaryclinton.com. I know she will make use of her power.
[Satire from 236.com; but not far from reality: see Angelou's video endorsement from last year and her more recent "poem" and comments ("You may write me down in history / With your bitter, twisted lies, / You may tread me in the very dirt / But still, like dust, I'll rise."). While we're on the subject, don't miss the old "Stale" parody, "I, Poem".]
April 22, 2008
The really inconvenient truth
From BBC News, April 22:
Opening a UN forum on the global impact of climate change on indigenous peoples, [Evo] Morales said that capitalism should be scrapped if the planet is to be saved from the effects of climate change.
"If we want to save our planet earth, we have a duty to put an end to the capitalist system," he said.
Bolivia's president said unbridled industrial development was responsible for the pillaging of natural resources.
environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights
Opening a UN forum on the global impact of climate change on indigenous peoples, [Evo] Morales said that capitalism should be scrapped if the planet is to be saved from the effects of climate change.
"If we want to save our planet earth, we have a duty to put an end to the capitalist system," he said.
Bolivia's president said unbridled industrial development was responsible for the pillaging of natural resources.
environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights
April 20, 2008
Best comment on ABC's disgraceful "debate"
"Such defacing of American values is to be expected, I guess, from a network whose debate moderators refuse to wear flag pins."
--Frank Rich, New York Times, Apr. 20
April 14, 2008
The Fog of War Memory
From "What Have We Learned, If Anything?" by Tony Judt, New York Review of Books, May 1, 2008:
We are slipping down a slope. The sophistic distinctions we draw today in our war on terror -- between the rule of law and “exceptional” circumstances, between citizens (who have rights and legal protections) and noncitizens to whom anything can be done, between normal people and “terrorists,” between “us” and “them” -- are not new. The twentieth century saw them all invoked. They are the selfsame distinctions that licensed the worst horrors of the recent past: internment camps, deportation, torture, and murder -- those very crimes that prompt us to murmur “never again.” So what exactly is it that we think we have learned from the past? Of what possible use is our self-righteous cult of memory and memorials if the United States can build its very own internment camp and torture people there?
Far from escaping the twentieth century, we need, I think, to go back and look a bit more carefully. We need to learn again -- or perhaps for the first time -- how war brutalizes and degrades winners and losers alike and what happens to us when, having heedlessly waged war for no good reason, we are encouraged to inflate and demonize our enemies in order to justify that war’s indefinite continuance. And perhaps, in this protracted electoral season, we could put a question to our aspirant leaders: Daddy (or, as it might be, Mommy), what did you do to prevent the war?
We are slipping down a slope. The sophistic distinctions we draw today in our war on terror -- between the rule of law and “exceptional” circumstances, between citizens (who have rights and legal protections) and noncitizens to whom anything can be done, between normal people and “terrorists,” between “us” and “them” -- are not new. The twentieth century saw them all invoked. They are the selfsame distinctions that licensed the worst horrors of the recent past: internment camps, deportation, torture, and murder -- those very crimes that prompt us to murmur “never again.” So what exactly is it that we think we have learned from the past? Of what possible use is our self-righteous cult of memory and memorials if the United States can build its very own internment camp and torture people there?
Far from escaping the twentieth century, we need, I think, to go back and look a bit more carefully. We need to learn again -- or perhaps for the first time -- how war brutalizes and degrades winners and losers alike and what happens to us when, having heedlessly waged war for no good reason, we are encouraged to inflate and demonize our enemies in order to justify that war’s indefinite continuance. And perhaps, in this protracted electoral season, we could put a question to our aspirant leaders: Daddy (or, as it might be, Mommy), what did you do to prevent the war?
April 4, 2008
Enron's revenge
Senator Patrick Leahy wrote:
Have you seen any evidence that industrial-scale wind measurably reduces, or even slows the growth of, greenhouse gas emissions? Since the wind doesn't always blow when you need it, and then blows variably, wind turbines can't replace other more reliable sources. And those other sources are forced to run less efficiently, i.e., with more, not less, emissions.
Furthermore, it is boilerplate pablum to mention foreign oil. Less than 3% of our electricity comes from burning oil, and most of that is the sludge left over from refining gasoline.
With such little benefit, and accumulating adverse impacts, industrial wind is a harmful boondoggle: Enron's revenge.
wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, human rights, Vermont
... I am firmly committed to reducing our nation's dependency on foreign oil and curbing greenhouse gas emission. That is why I have long supported tax incentives for the solar industry and wind power ...Reply:
Have you seen any evidence that industrial-scale wind measurably reduces, or even slows the growth of, greenhouse gas emissions? Since the wind doesn't always blow when you need it, and then blows variably, wind turbines can't replace other more reliable sources. And those other sources are forced to run less efficiently, i.e., with more, not less, emissions.
Furthermore, it is boilerplate pablum to mention foreign oil. Less than 3% of our electricity comes from burning oil, and most of that is the sludge left over from refining gasoline.
With such little benefit, and accumulating adverse impacts, industrial wind is a harmful boondoggle: Enron's revenge.
wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, human rights, Vermont
April 2, 2008
Cost, space, safety risk, threats to flora and fauna, noise, aesthetic intrusion, shadow flicker: problems with wind energy
Ton van de Wekken, of KEMA Nederland, an energy systems consultancy, writes in the April 1 Renewable Energy World (excerpts):
The costs of onshore wind ranges from €55–100/MWh, depending on the wind resource. For most locations, though, wind energy is not cost-effective and incentives are a prerequisite to make a wind farm profitable.
Inevitably, offshore wind farms are more expensive to develop than onshore farms – requiring about double the initial investment and double the operational costs – due to the extra costs of construction, transport to site and interconnection.
Initiation and feasibility
... Wind farms require large sites. Depending on the rotor diameter the required mutual separation is 300–500 metres with a similar separation distance from dwellings and commercial buildings to limit noise nuisance and provide a safety zone. Even for a medium-sized wind farm, say 5 × 2 MW machines, a substantial land area is required.
Planning requirements of local authorities
The wind farm site has to meet planning and regulatory requirements. In most countries wind turbines may not rotate above roads, railway tracks and waterways, and a minimum clearance from public infrastructure must be observed such as facilities for transport, storage or processing of hazardous goods, and residential, commercial or public buildings.
In northern countries and countries with a continental climate, specific attention has to be paid to the possibility of icing. Ice developed on rotating rotor blades can be thrown long distances, potentially causing injury and damage and planning authorities and regulatory bodies may require an additional risk analysis if the site is subject to icing.
There may also be a zoning plan that prohibits wind turbines or limits the maximum height of structures. Under such circumstances, the relevant authorities should be approached to investigate the possibility of obtaining permission at the earliest possible stage.
In most European countries wind turbines must also be certified according to the relevant national or international safety standards. Manufacturers have to demonstrate conformance by the production of a valid type-certificate.
For any proposed wind farm the following should be considered:
The wind farm must comply with all relevant environmental regulations. This may require a number of studies of, for example, the effects on birds, animals and plant life during the construction and use phases. Key parameters include noise, visual impact and safety, and most planning authorities also demand safety and risk assessment studies.
Wind turbines produce noise, mostly caused by the rotor blades and drive train, and the noise impact of wind turbines on the environment is one of the major planning issues. The distance to nearby residential buildings has to be sufficient to ensure that the noise level at the house front is below the statutory limit. The visual impact of a wind farm is also an important planning consideration. Wind farms require open, often elevated, sites and are consequently highly visible from a distance. Many of the potentially most productive sites are in areas of great natural beauty where planning regulation can be very restrictive. Shadow flickering on dwellings and offices due to the periodic – about once per second – passage of the rotating blades across the sun can be very annoying for the occupants, although it is not regulated by law.
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, human rights
The costs of onshore wind ranges from €55–100/MWh, depending on the wind resource. For most locations, though, wind energy is not cost-effective and incentives are a prerequisite to make a wind farm profitable.
Inevitably, offshore wind farms are more expensive to develop than onshore farms – requiring about double the initial investment and double the operational costs – due to the extra costs of construction, transport to site and interconnection.
Initiation and feasibility
... Wind farms require large sites. Depending on the rotor diameter the required mutual separation is 300–500 metres with a similar separation distance from dwellings and commercial buildings to limit noise nuisance and provide a safety zone. Even for a medium-sized wind farm, say 5 × 2 MW machines, a substantial land area is required.
Planning requirements of local authorities
The wind farm site has to meet planning and regulatory requirements. In most countries wind turbines may not rotate above roads, railway tracks and waterways, and a minimum clearance from public infrastructure must be observed such as facilities for transport, storage or processing of hazardous goods, and residential, commercial or public buildings.
In northern countries and countries with a continental climate, specific attention has to be paid to the possibility of icing. Ice developed on rotating rotor blades can be thrown long distances, potentially causing injury and damage and planning authorities and regulatory bodies may require an additional risk analysis if the site is subject to icing.
There may also be a zoning plan that prohibits wind turbines or limits the maximum height of structures. Under such circumstances, the relevant authorities should be approached to investigate the possibility of obtaining permission at the earliest possible stage.
In most European countries wind turbines must also be certified according to the relevant national or international safety standards. Manufacturers have to demonstrate conformance by the production of a valid type-certificate.
For any proposed wind farm the following should be considered:
- Check municipal zoning plan on competing activities and maximum building height
- Mutual distance between wind turbines 400 metres
- There are to be no buildings and as few obstacles as possible within 300–500 metres
- Authorities or concerned parties may request a risk analysis if other activities are to take place within 400–500 metres of the wind turbines.
The wind farm must comply with all relevant environmental regulations. This may require a number of studies of, for example, the effects on birds, animals and plant life during the construction and use phases. Key parameters include noise, visual impact and safety, and most planning authorities also demand safety and risk assessment studies.
Wind turbines produce noise, mostly caused by the rotor blades and drive train, and the noise impact of wind turbines on the environment is one of the major planning issues. The distance to nearby residential buildings has to be sufficient to ensure that the noise level at the house front is below the statutory limit. The visual impact of a wind farm is also an important planning consideration. Wind farms require open, often elevated, sites and are consequently highly visible from a distance. Many of the potentially most productive sites are in areas of great natural beauty where planning regulation can be very restrictive. Shadow flickering on dwellings and offices due to the periodic – about once per second – passage of the rotating blades across the sun can be very annoying for the occupants, although it is not regulated by law.
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, human rights
March 31, 2008
Babcock & Brown to sell European wind facilities -- to itself
Hello, Enron!
The Financial Times reports (click on the title of this post) that Australian energy investor Babcock & Brown is hoping to cash in its European wind energy assets.
The likely buyer is Portuguese wind company Enersis, which is jointly owned by Babcock & Brown and Babcock & Brown Wind Partners.
Hmmm.
wind power, wind energy, wind farms
The Financial Times reports (click on the title of this post) that Australian energy investor Babcock & Brown is hoping to cash in its European wind energy assets.
The likely buyer is Portuguese wind company Enersis, which is jointly owned by Babcock & Brown and Babcock & Brown Wind Partners.
Hmmm.
wind power, wind energy, wind farms
March 27, 2008
Wind farm follies
A couple of recent news items show the folly of industrial wind.
First, a press release from the Major Electricity Users' Group (MEUG) of New Zealand describes how the unreliability of wind energy is costing utilities more on the spot market and requiring more diesel backup.
First, a press release from the Major Electricity Users' Group (MEUG) of New Zealand describes how the unreliability of wind energy is costing utilities more on the spot market and requiring more diesel backup.
"[T]he underlying driver of current high spot prices is that water is relatively short because of low seasonal inflows and wind generation has been unreliable. These are the types of renewables the government puts much faith in to achieve its 90% renewables by 2025 target, assisted by a ban on new thermal power stations.Second, a Mar. 27 news story from the Colorodoan describes the Platte River Power Authority (PRPA)'s maintenance problems with their 10-year-old Vestas turbines. It also shows the sham of renewable energy credits, or "green tags", as a substitute for actual energy, since they cost the PRPA one-fifth what operating their own turbines costs.
"Yesterday the Te Apiti wind farm had peak generation of approximately 30 MW. Installed wind turbine capacity at Te Apiti is 90 MW. Average wind generation for the whole day from Te Apiti was approximately 12 MW. Just when we need as much supply as possible to cover known outages and hence put pressure on spot prices, wind has been missing.
"Once again the expensive to run government owned Whirinaki power station burning diesel entered the market yesterday. Whirinaki has been used partly for 13 days over the last 5 weeks. If government dictates more wind generation should be built by banning new cheaper gas fired base load power stations, we will need a lot more Whirinaki type plants around New Zealand. The operating costs of Whirinaki are estimated to be in excess of 30 c/kWh so using diesel plants in the future to cover dry years or windless periods will penalise all consumers of electricity.
"The evidence that relying on more renewables rather than a mix of generation types will lead to extreme spot prices and the need for inefficient peaking thermal plant is happening almost everyday with the current prolonged summer weather. Government needs to heed the signs and urgently rethink the proposed ban on thermal generation," concluded Ralph Matthes, Executive Director of the MEUG.
Some components on Vestas Wind Systems-manufactured wind turbines at Platte River Power Authority's Medicine Bow Wind Project are failing more than 15 years earlier than expected, according to PRPA.wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms
Since the Medicine Bow, which is in southern Wyoming, went online in 1998, 30 major outages have occurred on the wind farm's nine turbines due to component failure, said John Bleem, PRPA division manager.
Although outages vary, Bleem said repairs have led to turbines being down for as long as three months and costing as much as $100,000 -- paid for by Vestas under its manufacturer warranty set to expire in 2011. ...
"When that warranty expires, then it's treated just like a warranty on a car where we will be responsible for the cost of repairs," Bleem said. "We are negotiating service contracts; and those costs have gone up for repairs and maintenance on the machines, and it will continue to go up with labor rates and parts costs." ...
Historically, PRPA has bolstered its renewable portfolio through the purchase of renewable energy credits, or RECs, that allow it to invest in wind farms owned by others who pay for maintenance and repairs. ...
Although PRPA receives a majority of its renewable energy through RECs, its homegrown Medicine Bow project has been far more costly despite producing less energy.
"We spend two-thirds of our renewable budget on energy and one-third on purchasing RECs," Bleem said. "About 80 percent of our portfolio supply comes from RECs, and 20 percent is coming from energy. So what that tells you is that renewable energy is much more expensive than purchasing RECs."
Nearly five to six times more expensive.
"We pay about 1 cent (per kilowatt-hour) for RECs, and we pay about 5 to 6 cents (per kilowatt-hour) for the wind energy we produce ourselves," Bleem said. ...
PRPA has been negotiating with Vestas to extend its Medicine Bow warranty beyond 2011 with some success, but the final result will likely leave the power authority paying a higher premium and more for repairs to its nine turbines. ...
"There is regular scheduled maintenance," Bleem said. "Lubrication is the major thing as well as some minor components that need replacement like filters, but the biggest concern is unscheduled outages. The unscheduled repairs are what have us concerned the most."
March 24, 2008
4,000
Dead.
Tens of thousands maimed.
And of course there's the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed, maimed, and displaced.
Tens of thousands maimed.
And of course there's the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed, maimed, and displaced.
March 20, 2008
The Family: Hillary Clinton's fascist spiritual guide
Barbara Ehrenreich writes:
There's a reason why Hillary Clinton has remained relatively silent during the flap over intemperate remarks by Barack Obama's former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. When it comes to unsavory religious affiliations, she's a lot more vulnerable than Obama.
You can find all about it in a widely under-read article in the September 2007 issue of Mother Jones, in which Kathryn Joyce and Jeff Sharlet reported that "through all of her years in Washington, Clinton has been an active participant in conservative Bible study and prayer circles that are part of a secretive Capitol Hill group known as the "Fellowship," aka The Family. But it won't be a secret much longer. Jeff Sharlet's shocking exposé, The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power will be published in May.
Sean Hannity has called Obama's church a "cult," but that term applies far more aptly to Clinton's "Family," which is organized into "cells" -- their term -- and operates sex-segregated group homes for young people in northern Virginia. In 2002, writer Jeff Sharlet joined the Family's home for young men, foreswearing sex, drugs, and alcohol, and participating in endless discussions of Jesus and power. He wasn't undercover; he used his own name and admitted to being a writer. But he wasn't completely out of danger either. When he went outdoors one night to make a cell phone call, he was followed. He still gets calls from Family associates asking him to meet them in diners -- alone.
The Family's most visible activity is its blandly innocuous National Prayer Breakfast, held every February in Washington. But almost all its real work goes on behind the scenes -- knitting together international networks of rightwing leaders, most of them ostensibly Christian. In the 1940s, The Family reached out to former and not-so-former Nazis, and its fascination with that exemplary leader, Adolph Hitler, has continued, along with ties to a whole bestiary of murderous thugs. As Sharlet reported in Harper's in 2003:
Clinton fell in with the Family in 1993, when she joined a Bible study group composed of wives of conservative leaders like Jack Kemp and James Baker. When she ascended to the senate, she was promoted to what Sharlet calls the Family's "most elite cell," the weekly Senate Prayer Breakfast, which included, until his downfall, Virginia's notoriously racist Senator George Allen. This has not been a casual connection for Clinton. She has written of Doug Coe, the Family's publicity-averse leader, that he is "a unique presence in Washington: a genuinely loving spiritual mentor and guide to anyone, regardless of party or faith, who wants to deepen his or her relationship with God."
Furthermore, the Family takes credit for some of Clinton's rightward legislative tendencies, including her support for a law guaranteeing "religious freedom" in the workplace, such as for pharmacists who refuse to fill birth control prescriptions and police officers who refuse to guard abortion clinics. ...
There's a reason why Hillary Clinton has remained relatively silent during the flap over intemperate remarks by Barack Obama's former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. When it comes to unsavory religious affiliations, she's a lot more vulnerable than Obama.
You can find all about it in a widely under-read article in the September 2007 issue of Mother Jones, in which Kathryn Joyce and Jeff Sharlet reported that "through all of her years in Washington, Clinton has been an active participant in conservative Bible study and prayer circles that are part of a secretive Capitol Hill group known as the "Fellowship," aka The Family. But it won't be a secret much longer. Jeff Sharlet's shocking exposé, The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power will be published in May.
Sean Hannity has called Obama's church a "cult," but that term applies far more aptly to Clinton's "Family," which is organized into "cells" -- their term -- and operates sex-segregated group homes for young people in northern Virginia. In 2002, writer Jeff Sharlet joined the Family's home for young men, foreswearing sex, drugs, and alcohol, and participating in endless discussions of Jesus and power. He wasn't undercover; he used his own name and admitted to being a writer. But he wasn't completely out of danger either. When he went outdoors one night to make a cell phone call, he was followed. He still gets calls from Family associates asking him to meet them in diners -- alone.
The Family's most visible activity is its blandly innocuous National Prayer Breakfast, held every February in Washington. But almost all its real work goes on behind the scenes -- knitting together international networks of rightwing leaders, most of them ostensibly Christian. In the 1940s, The Family reached out to former and not-so-former Nazis, and its fascination with that exemplary leader, Adolph Hitler, has continued, along with ties to a whole bestiary of murderous thugs. As Sharlet reported in Harper's in 2003:
During the 1960s the Family forged relationships between the U.S. government and some of the most anti-Communist (and dictatorial) elements within Africa's postcolonial leadership. The Brazilian dictator General Costa e Silva, with Family support, was overseeing regular fellowship groups for Latin American leaders, while, in Indonesia, General Suharto (whose tally of several hundred thousand "Communists" killed marks him as one of the century's most murderous dictators) was presiding over a group of fifty Indonesian legislators. During the Reagan Administration the Family helped build friendships between the U.S. government and men such as Salvadoran general Carlos Eugenios Vides Casanova, convicted by a Florida jury of the torture of thousands, and Honduran general Gustavo Alvarez Martinez, himself an evangelical minister, who was linked to both the CIA and death squads before his own demise.At the heart of the Family's American branch is a collection of powerful rightwing politicos, who include, or have included, Sam Brownback, Ed Meese, John Ashcroft, James Inhofe, and Rick Santorum. They get to use the Family's spacious estate on the Potomac, the Cedars, which is maintained by young men in Family group homes and where meals are served by the Family's young women's group. And, at the Family's frequent prayer gatherings, they get powerful jolts of spiritual refreshment, tailored to the already-powerful.
Clinton fell in with the Family in 1993, when she joined a Bible study group composed of wives of conservative leaders like Jack Kemp and James Baker. When she ascended to the senate, she was promoted to what Sharlet calls the Family's "most elite cell," the weekly Senate Prayer Breakfast, which included, until his downfall, Virginia's notoriously racist Senator George Allen. This has not been a casual connection for Clinton. She has written of Doug Coe, the Family's publicity-averse leader, that he is "a unique presence in Washington: a genuinely loving spiritual mentor and guide to anyone, regardless of party or faith, who wants to deepen his or her relationship with God."
Furthermore, the Family takes credit for some of Clinton's rightward legislative tendencies, including her support for a law guaranteeing "religious freedom" in the workplace, such as for pharmacists who refuse to fill birth control prescriptions and police officers who refuse to guard abortion clinics. ...
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