Google's self driving car crashes

SUBHEAD: Robotic Prius rear and another Prius causing five car collision. No injuries were reported

By Justin Hyde on 5 August 2011 for Jalopnik -
(http://jalopnik.com/5828101)

 
Image above: Google robot car (right) rear ended another Prius in Mountain View California. From original article.

This photo of what looks like a minor case of Prius-on-Prius vehicular violence may actually be a piece of automotive history: the first accident caused by Google's self-driving car. Whose name should the cop write down on the ticket?  

UPDATE!
Sent in by a Jalopnik tipster, the photos were snapped earlier this week near Google's Mountain View, Calif., headquarters. The Prius — recognizable as a Google self-driving prototype from the roof equipment that's smaller than a typical Google Streetview image collector — appears to have rear-ended another Prius.

This is precisely why we're worried about self-driving cars. Perhaps the complicated set of lasers and imaging systems that Google chief autonomous car researcher Sebastian Thrun called "the perfect driving mechanism" thought it was just looking at its shadow.

Earlier this year, Google convinced the state legislature of Nevada to create a special license allowing self-driving cars on the state's freeways, and its been racking up hundreds of thousands of miles in California, where there's no law banning them.

Yet Google has never answered the question of who's ultimately responsible for any accidents that happen while the software controls the vehicle. There's a driver in all of Google's tests who can take control, and probably gets the ticket in this case — but Google imagines these vehicles spreading far beyond its corporate campus.

Google can't be hoping to have its software legally blamed for a slice of the traffic crashes that cost more than $160 billion a year in this country. Yet if the operators of Google's self-driving cars retain all legal responsibility, simply turning the system on would be seen in court as a sign they weren't paying attention.

Already some of the more forward-thinking technologists have questioned whether autonomous vehicles should be smart enough to sacrifice its own passengers to save other people in an imminent crash. Aside from promising the worst of a "Blade Runner" future, such thought experiments illustrate why self-driving cars will require such a huge conceptual hurdle to catch on in the United States.

The biggest battle in auto safety today involves keeping drivers focused on driving. Google's self-driving car seems like the ultimate distracted driving machine.

UPDATE #1: The boys at Business Insider received the following quote from a Google spokesperson about the accident: "Safety is our top priority. One of our goals is to prevent fender-benders like this one, which occurred while a person was manually driving the car."
Of course, how would we actually know whether it was being manually-driven at the time? Now that we've got confirmation that this was one of Google's self-driven cars, it's high time we got a closer look at the details of how they're trying to make it happen — and any evidence that this actually was being driven by a real, live human being.

UPDATE #2: 

NBC's San Francisco station spoke with a woman who witnessed the crash and reported that in addition to the two Priuses, the crash also involved three other vehicles:

Google's Prius struck another Prius, which then struck her Honda Accord that her brother was driving. That Accord then struck another Honda Accord, and the second Accord hit a separate, non-Google-owned Prius.

Striking a car with enough force to trigger a four-car chain reaction suggests the Google car was moving at a decent clip. Google says its unable to provide us with a copy of any official accident report, but that may be the only way to know what happened for sure.
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Raw milk purveyors arrested

SUBHEAD: Dairy farms have been raided, farmers arrested and fines of over $100,000 per person levied.

 By Jeff Nield on 4 August 2011 for TreeHugger -  
(http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/08/raw-milk-purveyors-arrested-bail-set-at-123000.php)

 
Image above: A herd of dairy cows. From original article.
 
In yet another example of wasted resources and misplaced priorities police in LA have raided Rawesome Foods, arresting three people in connection with the distribution of raw milk products without the proper permits.


This isn't the first time the "members only" raw food club has been targeted. Last summer Rawesome was raided by local, state, and federal authorities, with guns drawn.

Presumably the authorities weren't satisfied with the results of the raid so they spent the last twelve months collecting enough evidence to arrest club owner James Cecil Stewart. Police concurrently raided Healthy Family Farms, the source of the nefarious white liquid, where they arrested farm owner Sharon Palmer. Stewarts bail has allegedly been set to $123,000, and Palmer's to $120,000.

Farm employee Eugenie Bloch was also arrested. No word on her bail, but she has been charged with three counts of conspiracy. LA Weekly quotes the D.A.'s office, stating that the three...

... were charged in a 13-count complaint ... Palmer owns Healthy Family Farms, LLC, in Santa Paula, which prosecutors allege has operated without any type of license or permit for milk production since 2007. The business Healthy Family Farms and Palmer are charged in nine of the 13 counts. Bloch works for Palmer and is charged in three conspiracy counts. Stewart runs the Venice market Rawesome, which has been in operation for more than six years but has never had any type of business permit or license, prosecutors allege. Stewart is facing 13 counts.

In today's climate of deregulation it's hard to believe that the authorities are working exclusively in the public interest. Since Rawesome is a private club it's safe to assume that the members are aware of what they're consuming when they take home their raw goat milk, yogurt and kefir. These items and more were seized from the premises and the liquid products were allegedly poured down the drain by the police.

I'll leave the last word to club volunteer Danielle Fetzer, quoted in LA Weekly, "You sign a waiver. It's your choice."
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LUC Rescinds Lepeuli decision

SOUCE: Hope Kallai (lokahipath2@live.com) SUBHEAD: Too good to be true. The craziness goes on. Who twisted whose arm on this embarrassment. By Juan Wilson on 5 August 2011 for Island Breath - (http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2011/08/luc-rescinds-lepeuli-decision.html) Image above: Beach access is under attack throughout Hawaii. From (http://beachaccesshawaii.blogspot.com/). Hope Kallai has been an activist defending access to Lepeuli Beach for years. This morning she forwarded a copy (PDF) of a letter from the Hawaii Land Use Commission Officer Director Orlando Davidson. In effect it rescinds the determination that the recently constructed cattle fence that the traditional access to Lepeuli Beach was inappropriately placed without a permit on Conservation District Land.

August 3, 2011 To All Interested Parties: RE: Boundary Interpretation No. 11 -0 1 Upon a further review of the file, it appears that Boundary Interpretation No. 11-01 was issued without benefit of a "survey map showing the locations of the shoreline as provided for in section 205A-42, HRS." Pursuant to Section 15-15-22 (b) of the Land Use Commission's Administrative Rules, "(a)ll requests for boundary interpretations involving shoreline properties shall be accompanied by a survey map showing the locations of the shoreline as provided for in Section 205A-42, HRS." The party seeking this boundary interpretation did not provide such a map. Based upon this omission, Boundary Interpretation No. I I - 1 should not have been issued. Accordingly, Boundary Interpretation No. 11 -0 1 is hereby rescinded and of no further force and effect. Should any interested party request a boundary interpretation in compliance with Section 15-15-22 of the Commission's Rules, we will undertake to process such a request as expeditiously as possible. Please contact me if you have any questions. Very truly yours, Orlando Davidson - Executive Officer Mail: P.O. Box 2359, Honolulu, Hawaii 96804 Office: 235 South Baretania Street Suite 406 Honolulu Hawaii, 95813 Tel: (808) 587-3822 Fax: (808)587-3827 Email: lucdbedt.hawaii.gov Distribution List: Rayne Regush, Sierra Club Kaua'i Group, Hawai'i Chapter Mr. Donald H. Wilson, Esq., Belles Graham Proudfoot Wilson & Chun LLP William J. Aila, Jr., Chair (BLNR)

This follows the ruling in favor of beach access just four days earlier. See below and previous article(http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2011/08/lepeuli-beach-fence-in-violation.html).

July 29, 2011 To Donald H. Wilson, Esq. : Belles Graham Proudfoot Wilson & Chun, LLP Watumull Plaza 4334 Rice Street, Suite 202 Lihu’e, Kaua’i 96766-1388 Dear Mr. Wilson: RE: Boundary Interpretation No. 11-01 Thank you for your letter dated July 27, 2011 regarding the above referenced Boundary Interpretation. The goal in every boundary interpretation is to make the determination based upon the best available information. In this instance, I believe that information from the landowner can certainly be relevant and useful as stated in your letter. Accordingly you are encouraged to submit to me all information, including survey maps, topographical maps, historical information and photographs that you believe will be helpful in reexamining the correctlocation of the Agricultural/Conservation boundary. If you elect to provide this information, could you please do so in the next thirty days. In addition, could you please confirm in writing that you intend to submit such information upon your receipt of this letter. Assuming that you elect to provide additional information, I believe that it would be reasonable for the Department of Land and Natural Resources and Kauai County to hold off taking action based upon Boundary Interpretation No. 11-01 while we undertake our review. Please do not hesitate to contact me at 587-3822 if you have any questions. Orlando Davidson - Executive Officer Mail: P.O. Box 2359, Honolulu, Hawaii 96804 Office: 235 South Baretania Street Suite 406 Honolulu Hawaii, 95813 Tel: (808) 587-3822 Fax: (808)587-3827 Email: lucdbedt.hawaii.gov

Oops! Who knew? .

Salvaging Science

SUBHEAD: The time of specialization for professional scientists is about over. Once again the amateur observer to carry on the scientific tradition.

 [IB Editor's note: This is the latter portion of Greer's long current article. The first six paragraphs can be found at his website that is linked below.]  

By John Michael Greer on 5 August 2011 for the ArchDruid Report - (http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2011/08/salvaging-science.html)
   
Image above: A collection of 19th century amateur science apparatuses. From (http://www.sas.org/index.html).

It’s rarely remembered these days that until quite recently, scientific research was mostly carried on by amateurs. The word “scientist” wasn’t even coined until 1833; before then, and for some time after, the research programs that set modern science on its way were carried out by university professors in other disciplines, middle class individuals with spare time on their hands, and wealthy dilletantes for whom science was a more interesting hobby than horse racing or politics.

Isaac Newton, for example, taught mathematics at Cambridge; Gilbert White founded the science of ecology with his Natural History of Selborne in his spare time as a clergyman; Charles Darwin came from a family with a share of the Wedgwood pottery fortune, had a clergyman’s education, and paid his own way around the world on the H.M.S. Beagle.

 It took a long time for scence as a profession to catch on, because—pace a myth very widespread these days—science contributed next to nothing to the technological revolutions that swept the western world in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Until late in the nineteenth century, in fact, things generally worked the other way around: engineers and basement tinkerers discovered some exotic new effect, and then scientists scrambled to figure out what made it happen.

James Clerk Maxwell, whose 1873 book Electricity and Magnetism finally got out ahead of the engineers to postulate the effects that would become the basis for radio, began the process by which science took the lead in technological innovation, but it wasn’t until the Second World War that science had matured enough to become the engine of discovery it then became. It was then that government and business investment in basic research took off, creating the institutionalized science of the present day.

Throughout the twentieth century, investment in scientific research proved to be a winning bet on the grand scale; it won wars, made fortunes, and laid the groundwork for today’s high-tech world. It’s a common belief these days that more of the same will yield more of the same—that more scentific research will make it possible to fix the world’s energy problems and, just maybe, its other problems as well. Popular as that view is, there’s good reason to doubt it. The core problem is that scientific research was necessary, but not sufficient, to create today’s industrial societies.

Cheap abundant energy was also necessary, and was arguably the key factor. In a very real sense, the role of science from the middle years of the nineteenth century on was basically figuring out new ways to use the torrents of energy that came surging out of wells and mines to power history’s most extravagant boom.

Lacking all that energy, the technological revolutions of the last few centuries very likely wouldn’t have happened at all; the steam turbine, remember, was known to the Romans, who did nothing with it because all the fuel they knew about was committed to other uses. Since the sources of fuel we’ll have after fossil fuels finish depleting are pretty much the same as the ones the Romans had, and we can also expect plenty of pressing needs for the energy sources that remain, it takes an essentially religious faith in the inevitability of progress to believe that another wave of technological innovation is right around the corner.

The end of the age of cheap abundant energy is thus also likely to be the end of the age in which science functions as a force for economic expansion. There are at least two other factors pointing in the same direction, though, and they need to be grasped to make sense of the predicament we’re in. First, science itself is well into the territory of diminishing returns, and most of the way through the normal life cycle of a human method of investigation.

What last week’s post described as abstraction, the form of intellectual activity that seeks to reduce the complexity of experience into a set of precisely formulated generalizations, always depends on such a method. Classical logic is another example, and it’s particularly useful here because it completed its life cycle long ago and so can be studied along its whole trajectory through time. Logic, like the scientific method, was originally the creation of a movement of urban intellectuals in a society emerging from a long and troubled medieval period.

Around the eighth century BCE, ancient Greece had finally worked out a stable human ecology that enabled it to finish recovering from the collapse of Mycenean society some six centuries before; olive and grapevine cultivation stabilized what was left of the fragile Greek soil and produced cash crops eagerly sought by markets around the eastern Mediterranean, bringing in a flood of wealth; the parallel with rapidly expanding European economies during the years when modern science first took shape is probably not coincidental.

Initial ventures in the direction of what would become Greek logic explored various options, some more successful than others; by the fifth century BCE, what we may as well call the logical revolution was under way, and the supreme triumphs of logical method occupied the century that followed. Arithmetic, geometry, music theory, and astronomy underwent revolutionary developments.

That’s roughly where the logical revolution ground to a halt, too, and the next dozen centuries or so saw little further progress. There were social factors at work, to be sure, but the most important factor was inherent in the method: using the principles of logic as the Greeks understood them, there’s only so far you can go.

Logical methods that had proved overwhelmingly successful against longstanding problems in mathematics worked far less well on questions about the natural world, and efforts to solve the problems of human life as though they were logical syllogisms tended to flop messily. Once the belief in the omnipotence of logic was punctured, on the other hand, it became possible to sort out what it could and couldn’t do, and—not coincidentally—to assign it a core place in the educational curriculum, a place it kept right up until the dawn of the modern world. I know it’s utter heresy even to hint at this, but I’d like to suggest that science, like logic before it, has gotten pretty close to its natural limits as a method of knowledge.

 In Darwin’s time, a century and a half ago, it was still possible to make worldshaking scientific discoveries with equipment that would be considered hopelessly inadequate for a middle school classroom nowadays; there was still a lot of low hanging fruit to be picked off the tree of knowledge. At this point, by contrast, the next round of experimental advances in particle physics depends on the Large Hadron Collider, a European project with an estimated total price tag around $5.5 billion. Many other branches of science have reached the point at which very small advances in knowledge are being made with very large investments of money, labor, and computing power.

Doubtless there will still be surprises in store, but revolutionary discoveries are very few and far between these days. Yet there’s another factor pressing against the potential advancement of science, and it’s one that very few scientists like to talk about. When science was drawn up into the heady realms of politics and business, it became vulnerable to the standard vices of those realms, and one of the consequences has been a great deal of overt scientific fraud. A study last year published in the Journal of Medical Ethics surveyed papers formally retracted between 2000 and 2010 in the health sciences.

About a quarter of them were retracted for scientific fraud, and half of these had a first author who had had another paper previously retracted for scientific fraud. Coauthors of these repeat offenders had, on average, three other papers each that had been retracted. Americans, it may be worth noting, far more often had papers retracted for fraud, and were repeat offenders, than their overseas colleagues. I don’t know how many of my readers were taught, as I was, that science is inherently self-policing and that any researcher who stooped to faking data would inevitably doom his career.

Claims like these are difficult to defend in the face of numbers of the sort just cited. Logic went through the same sort of moral collapse in its time; the English word "sophistry" commemorates the expert debaters of fourth-century Greece who could and did argue with sparkling logic for anyone who would pay them. To be fair, scientists as a class would have needed superhuman virtue to overcome the temptations of wealth, status, and influence proffered them in the post-Second World War environment, and it’s also arguably true that the average morality of scientists well exceeds that of businesspeople or politicians.

That still leaves room for a good deal of duplicity, and it’s worth noting that this has not escaped the attention of the general public. It’s an item of common knowledge these days that the court testimony or the political endorsement of a qualified scientist, supporting any view you care to name, can be had for the cost of a research grant or two.

 I’m convinced that this is the hidden subtext in the spreading popular distrust of science that is such a significant feature in our public life: a great many Americans, in particular, have come to see scientific claims as simply one more rhetorical weapon brandished by competing factions in the social and political struggles of our day.

This is unfortunate, because—like logic—the scientific method is a powerful resource; like logic, again, there are things it can do better than any other creation of the human mind, and some of those things will be needed badly in the years ahead of us. Between the dumping of excess specializations in a contracting economy, the diminishing returns of scientific research itself, and the spreading popular distrust of science as currently practiced, the likelihood that any significant fraction of today’s institutional science will squeeze through the hard times ahead is minimal at best.

What that leaves, it seems to me, is a return to the original roots of science as an amateur pursuit. There are still some corners of the sciences—typically those where there isn’t much money in play—that are open to participation by amateurs.

There are also quite a few branches of scientific work that are scarcely being done at all these days—again, because there isn’t much money in play—and their number is likely to increase as funding cuts continue.

To my mind, one of the places where these trends intersect with the needs of the future is in local natural history and ecology, the kind of close study of nature’s patterns that launched the environmental sciences, back in the day. To cite an example very nearly at random, it would take little more than a microscope, a notebook, and a camera to do some very precise studies of the effect of organic gardening methods on soil microorganisms, beneficial and harmful insects, and crop yields, or to settle once and for all the much-debated question of whether adding biochar to garden soil has any benefits in temperate climates. These are things the green wizards of the future are going to need to be able to figure out.

 With much scientific research in America moving in what looks uncomfortably like a death spiral, the only way those skills are likely to make it across the crisis ahead of us is if individuals and local groups pick them up and pass them on to others. Now is probably not too soon to get started, either.

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Rumsfeld torture lawsuit to proceed

SUBHEAD: A judge allows Army veteran unjustly tortured to sue former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. By AP Staff on 4 August 2011 in Huffington Post - (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/04/donald-rumsfeld-torture-lawsuit_n_917966.html) Image above: Closeup of a clueless Donald H. Rumfeld. From (http://middleeast.about.com/od/iraq/tp/abu-ghraib-complete-guide.htm). A judge is allowing an Army veteran who says he was imprisoned unjustly and tortured by the U.S. military in Iraq to sue former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld personally for damages.

The veteran's identity is withheld in court filings, but he worked for an American contracting company as a translator for the Marines in the volatile Anbar province before being detained for nine months at Camp Cropper, a U.S. military facility near the Baghdad airport dedicated to holding "high-value" detainees.

The government says he was suspected of helping get classified information to the enemy and helping anti-coalition forces enter Iraq. But he was never charged with a crime and says he never broke the law.

Lawyers for the man, who is in his 50s, say he was preparing to come home to the United States on annual leave when he was abducted by the U.S. military and held without justification while his family knew nothing about his whereabouts or even whether he was still alive.

Court papers filed on his behalf say he was repeatedly abused, then suddenly released without explanation in August 2006. Two years later, he filed suit in U.S. District Court in Washington arguing that Rumsfeld personally approved torturous interrogation techniques on a case-by-case basis and controlled his detention without access to courts in violation of his constitutional rights.

Chicago attorney Mike Kanovitz, who is representing the plaintiff, says it appears the military wanted to keep his client behind bars so he couldn't tell anyone about an important contact he made with a leading sheik while helping collect intelligence in Iraq.

"The U.S. government wasn't ready for the rest of the world to know about it, so they basically put him on ice," Kanovitz said in a telephone interview. "If you've got unchecked power over the citizens, why not use it?"

The Obama administration has represented Rumsfeld through the Justice Department and argued that the former defense secretary cannot be sued personally for official conduct. The Justice Department also argued that a judge cannot review wartime decisions that are the constitutional responsibility of Congress and the president. And the department said the case could disclose sensitive information and distract from the war effort, and said the threat of liability would impede future military decisions.

But U.S. District Judge James Gwin rejected those arguments and said U.S. citizens are protected by the Constitution at home or abroad during wartime.

"The court finds no convincing reason that United States citizens in Iraq should or must lose previously declared substantive due process protections during prolonged detention in a conflict zone abroad," Gwin wrote in a ruling issued Tuesday.

"The stakes in holding detainees at Camp Cropper may have been high, but one purpose of the constitutional limitations on interrogation techniques and conditions of confinement even domestically is to strike a balance between government objectives and individual rights even when the stakes are high," the judge ruled.

In many other cases brought by foreign detainees, judges have dismissed torture claims made against U.S. officials for their personal involvement in decisions over prisoner treatment. But this is the second time a federal judge has allowed U.S. citizens to sue Rumsfeld personally.

U.S. District Judge Wayne R. Andersen in Illinois last year said two other Americans who worked in Iraq as contractors and were held at Camp Cropper, Donald Vance and Nathan Ertel, can pursue claims that they were tortured using Rumsfeld-approved methods after they alleged illegal activities by their company. Rumsfeld is appealing that ruling, which Gwin cited.

The Supreme Court sets a high bar for suing high-ranking officials, requiring that they be tied directly to a violation of constitutional rights and must have clearly understood their actions crossed that line.

The case before Gwin involves a man who went to Iraq in December 2004 to work with an American-owned defense contracting firm. He was assigned as an Arabic translator for Marines gathering intelligence in Anbar. He says he was the first American to open direct talks with Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha, who became an important U.S. ally and later led a revolt of Sunni sheiks against al-Qaida before being killed by a bomb.

In November 2005, when he was to go on home leave, Navy Criminal Investigative Service agents questioned him about his work, refusing his requests for representation by his employer, the Marines or an attorney. The Justice Department says he was told he was suspected of helping provide classified information to the enemy and helping anti-coalition forces attempting to cross from Syria into Iraq.

He says he refused to answer questions because of concern about confidentiality, and the agents handcuffed and blindfolded him, kicked him in the back and threatened to shoot him if he tried to escape. He was then transferred to an unidentified location for three days before being flown to Camp Cropper.

For his first three months at Camp Cropper he says he was held incommunicado in solitary confinement with a hole in the ground for a toilet. He says he was then moved to cells holding terrorist suspects hostile to the United States who were told about his work for the military, leading to physical attacks by his cellmates that left him in constant fear for his life.

He claims guards tortured him by repeatedly choking him, exposing him to extreme cold and continuous artificial light, blindfolding and hooding him, waking him by banging on a door or slamming a window when he tried to sleep and blasting music into his cell at "intolerably loud volumes."

He says he always denied any wrongdoing and truthfully answered questions but interrogators continued to threaten him. Both sides say a detainee status board in December 2005 determined he was a threat to the multinational forces in Iraq and authorized his continued detention, but he says he was not allowed to see most of the evidence against him. Documents the government filed with the court only say he is suspected of a crime, without providing details.

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Lepeuli Beach fence in violation

SUBHEAD: The Land Use Commission determines Waioli Corporation has placed un-permitted fence in Conservation District. By Richard Spacer on 4 August 2011 - (rspacer@yahoo.com) Image above: LUC map with highlighting, by Juan Wilson of illegal fence (red line) within Conservation District (light green area). Click to download full PDF map. Here is a package of documents regarding the Boundary Interpretation for Lepeuli just completed by the state Land Use Commission. The State of Hawaii feels the boundary is between the gradual, lateral, coastal trail and the parking lot, by the ironwood trees. Waioli attorney Don Wilson is not pleased with the interpretation. Waioli Corporation is considering their next move - to appeal or drop the matter. If it is upheld the fencing makai of the Conservation District boundary is in fact inside the Conservation District, Paradise Ranch could be ordered by DLNR to remove the unpermitted fencing AND pay fines of $15,000. per day. Fencing was installed May 21, 2011. Paradise Ranch has authority to fence in the agricultural district with the Kauai county SMA permit, but NOT to block the lateral coastal trail (Condition 6). They gave up their state CDUP permit in January at BLNR in Honolulu. So, they cannot work in the state Conservation District. Seperately, Kauai County can order the fencing removed from across the entrance to the lateral, coastal trail, irregardless of what land district it is in, as it was unlawfully installed in violation of Condition 6 of the county SMA permit under perceived authority of that permit. See also: Letter from Sierra Club to LUC (http://www.islandbreath.org/2011Year/08/110804sierraclub.pdf) Letter from Donald Wilson to LUC (http://www.islandbreath.org/2011Year/08/110804donwilson.pdf) Ea O Ka Aina: Lepeuli Beach access surprise 6/30/11 Ea O Ka Aina: Lepeuli Beach access gets hearing 6/23/11 Ea O Ka Aina: Illegal fence blocks Lepeuli Beach 6/13/11 .

KIUC Petitioners PUC Request

SOURCE: Elaine Dunbar (nunyabus@gmail.com) SUBHEAD: Update on dialog between the Representatives of KIUC Petitoners and office of Rep. James Tokioka. [Editor's note: This issue is not over. More correspondence on this subject can be read here (110804kiucpuc.pdf)] Image above: The Simpson's line up for Enron Ride. The Scummiest Guys in the Room article from (http://www.absurdandreport.com/2011/04/enron-scummiest-guys-in-room.html). By Tek Nickerson for Representatives of KIUC Petiton - KIUC held their regularly scheduled Board meeting yesterday, Tuesday, 7.26.11. In response to the Members' Second Petition and strong request for a verifiable count of signatures, KIUC simply issued a statement, defining a valid signature vs an invalid signature, plus a restatement of the count. They completely sidestepped the question about verification and that they might have a vested interest in protecting their own privacy how the determination was made on each signature. I was the only one from the public signed in to talk, which was first on the agenda. Chairman Phil Tacbian said only members could talk and they could only talk in items on the agenda for three minutes. I was called "to the stand." I introduced myself as the point person on the second petition (to recall the election). The chairman said the petition was not on the agenda, and therefore COULD NOT BE DISCUSSED, so I could not talk. I thanked him and sat down, setting my precedence for respect. (It was later explained to me that items are put on the agenda five days prior to the meeting. The agenda is posted on the KIUC web site. Since Tuesday was the sixth day after they received the petition, they CHOSE to avoid the issue by ignoring it on the agenda.) I sat and listened as each person at the table gave their report. Consulting Counsel Proudfoot reported that he advised the Board how to proceed in response to the Second Petition. Paraphrasing:

"A point of order, Mr. Chairman! Mr Proudfoot just brought the subject of the Second Petition to the table! I may now speak on the subject!" "No, you may not."

This is the second time the Chair CHOSE to be dismissive. Steve Raposo, Vice Chair and chairman of the Members Relations Committee, did not mention the Second Petition in his report. This was the third time that a KIUC elected representative chose to ignore their commitment to being open and reaching out to the public. During a break, Consulting Counsel Proudfoot approached Director Jan TenBruggencarte and me. He said he was intending to tell Jan something to tell me. Finding me pleasant and inviting his advice, he said that I could ask the Chair to wave the rule and allow me to speak. This is encouraging, especially coming from him. We showed each other we were reasonable men and could work with each other. Raposo's Members Relations report centered on defining exactly what their course of action would be for outreach with the public. After ten minutes of discussion, it was still a quandary for them what it would look like. Knowing that Raposo probably categorized me as an unreasonable obstructionist, I approached him with a suggestion. He was a bit taken aback, but he listened. I reminded him that history has taught us the approach that works under similar circumstances: the Dolley Madison solution of giving weekly parties for opposing political sides in the neutral territory of her home. I.e. Take the budget for talk-down "dog and pony shows" and apply it to island-wide regional parties, where the public is attracted first by the food and then by the opportunity to ask questions of their elected directors and opposing views one-on-one. Raposo listened. Time will tell if he is receptive to Dolley Madison's ingeniously iconic solution, used in the White House to this day. Raposo is one of the Gang of Five, who controls the direction that the board votes. (About the First Petition, he reportedly remarked that some people are only obstructionists. This is the third opportunity they passed up.) At each opportunity ANY one of the directors could have interjected an objection...and did not. The three up for re-election are Ben Sullivan, Stu Burley and Steve Raposo. Jan explained that if we vote out Stu and Steve with strong candidates, we'll have purged the Gang of Five with our own Five Alive. This is the light at the end of the tunnel. Meanwhile, sitting in the back of the room for a while was Free Flow Power representatives, Jason Hines and his assistant, Dawn. The chairman invited them to report an update on their progress. THIS WAS NOT ON THE AGENDA. Then we all took a break before they went onto Executive session. I took the opportunity to complain to Ben Sullivan that FFP should not have been given the floor, since they weren't on the Agenda. Ben said he let it go, because they wouldn't be taking a vote. That's contrary to their own rules! Thus, there is NO WAY in which the situation can be "corrected" if the Board can continue to "pick and choose" what it can do accordingly. Will KIUC consider the "possibility" of a forum approach in getting to the root of the matter discussed in a neutral venue with an opportunity for both sides of the issue to be in the planning process of determining what should be discussed and how both sides can be fairly presented? >

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July 18, 2011 Kauai Island Utility Cooperative David Bissell, President & CEO T. Phil Tacbian, Board Chairman 4463 Pahee Street, Suite 1 Lihue, Hawaii 96766 Dear President Bissel and Board of Directors, KIUC members recently placed their names on a second petition under the heading: KIUC CO-OP MEMBERS PETITION TO RECALL THE BALLOTS AND REDO THE ELECTION, in response to the first petition. On July 13, 2011 through the Garden Island Newspaper we learned: “Kaua‘i Island Utility Cooperative on Wednesday announced that an insufficient number of valid signatures was submitted on a second petition received by the cooperative on Monday…At the completion of the verification process by KIUC and legal counsel. It was determined that of the 291 signatures submitted 185 were valid, requiring no further action by the KIUC Board of Directors,” a KIUC news release states. The statement that no further action is required by the board is the same dismissive attitude that brought about the first and now, second petition. Petitioners were surprised at the extremely high number of invalidated names reported, 106 according to your count alone. Over 2,000 members have questioned your recent decisions; in all fairness a legitimate obligation exists to follow through for these members who took the time to voice their opinion in a democratic process afforded by their KIUC By-laws, Article II, Sections 2 & 6, in accordance with the Hawaii Revised Statutes. In order for members to satisfactorily be assured that the verification process was handled in an independent and unbiased manner, we are requesting confirmation through: 1) A copy of the report with your findings that reflect a. how you conducted the verification process, b. who counted the petition names and c. if a third, independent party was involved. 2) A copy of the petition with page number and line item or checks in front of the names / signatures / addresses / account numbers that were deemed invalidated. 3) Please state the reason for each invalidation. We see this as a reasonable expectation in a democratic process and essential in putting to rest any lingering doubt about discrepancies. As well, this would be a clear indication that the mutual interests and responsibilities are transpiring with clarity, transparency and accountability in our shared quest to build trust. Please provide this information within 5 working days, addressed to: PETITIONERS C/O Tek Nickerson 6978-b Kokeanu Place, Kapaa, HI 96746 With kind regards, Representatives of KIUC Petitioners Jonathan Jay Tel: 808-634-6267 Scott Mijares Tel: 808-652-7113 Ken Taylor Tel: 808-823-8527 Jose Bulatao 337-9135 Tek Nickerson Tel: 808-822-4795 6978-b Kokeanu Place Kapaa, HI 96746 .

Privatizing Hawaii's Public Lands

SOURCE: Ken Taylor (taylork021@hawaii.rr.com)
SUBHEAD: Abercrombie signs bill that will create a Public Lands Corporation to privatize and develop Hawaiian public lands.

 By Staff on 2 June 2011 for Lahaina News - 
  (http://lahainanews.com/page/content.detail/id/502120/Governor-signs-bills-on-public-lands-into-law.html)

  Image above: Stanford Dole (center) proclaiming himself President of the Republic of Hawaii on July 4th 1894. From (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sanford_Dole_proclaiming_the_Republic_of_Hawaii.jpg).

 Gov. Neil Abercrombie has signed two bills relating to public lands into law. Introduced by Sen. Malama Solomon, the measure, now Act 54, establishes a comprehensive information system for public lands. The system will be used for the inventory and maintenance of information relating to the public lands trust, also known as ceded lands, and other state lands. “Senate Bill 2 is a long-awaited initiative that has finally come into fruition. The land inventory required to be taken and maintained will be an all-important tool to help the state of Hawaii manage its public lands,” said Solomon, who represents Waimea, Hamakua, North Hilo, Rural South Hilo, Hilo. Abercrombie also signed Senate Bill 1555.

Introduced by Sen. Donovan Dela Cruz, the measure, now Act 55, establishes the Public Land Development Corporation which will serve as an arm of the DLNR. The overall purpose of the Corporation will be to generate revenues that may be used to offset the regulatory functions of DLNR.

The Corporation is tasked to administer an appropriate and culturally sensitive program that will make optimal use of public lands for the economic, environmental and social benefit for the people of Hawaii. It will also identify public lands that are suitable for redevelopment, administer marketing analysis to determine the best revenue-generating programs for the public lands, enter into public-private agreements to appropriately redevelop the public lands and provide the leadership for the redevelopment, financing, improvement, or enhancement of the selected redevelopment opportunities.

“As the State faces a budget shortfall and departments such as the Department of Land and Natural Resources continues to see cuts in staff, it is imperative that we get this economy back on track,” 

said Dela Cruz, who represents Mililani Mauka, Wahiawa, Haleiwa, Mokuleia, North Shore. Dela Cruz said;

“The DLNR will focus on the regulatory functions while the Public Lands Corporation will focus on the revenue generating functions.”

“By creating opportunities through public-private partnerships we can revitalize our state parks, redevelop our boat harbors, and create revenue generating opportunities that result into jobs. The end-game is to get the dilapidated infrastructure and underutilized land generating revenue so that no taxpayer money will be directed to supporting DLNR and the department will no longer need to rely on the general fund,” Dela Cruz said. [Editor's note: Both acts went into effect on July 1, 2011.]
 

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PLOP - Colonialism 4.0 Sneak-Attack  

By Arnie on 28 June 2011 for Statehood Hawaii -  
(http://statehoodhawaii.org/2011/06/28/dlnr_plop)
 
SB 1555–DLNR’s Public Land Optimization Plan
Today, July 1st, 2011, Act 55 goes into effect in Hawaii, an act that gives the State of Hawaii, through the Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR), a new for-profit entity directed by DLNR, the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism (DBEDT), and the Department of Budget and Finance (DBF), headed by William Aila, Richard Lim, and Kalbert K. Young, respectively, called the -

PUBLIC LAND DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION (PLDC)

to establish a PUBLIC LAND OPTIMIZATION PLAN that will create public-private investment opportunities to develop all public lands currently under the authority of DLNR, which could include the controversial “ceded” lands, the roughly 1.8 million acres of Crown Lands that were “ceded” to the Territory during the fraudulent transfer to the U.S by the Republic of Hawaii, and transferred to the administration of the State of Hawaii during statehood.

Read SB1555 CD1

Mission Statement for Department of Land and Natural Resources

“Enhance, protect, conserve and manage Hawaii’s unique and limited natural, cultural and historic resources held in public trust for current and future generations of visitors and the people of Hawaii nei in partnership with others from the public and private sectors.”

There was a lot of expectation for William Aila, an environmental and land rights activist, when he was appointed by Governor Neil Abercrombie in 2010 to become the new Director for DLNR. He served on the boards and commissions as Hawai‘i Community Development Authority, Wai‘anae Coast Weed and Seed Steering Committee, Makaha Elementary School Community Management Board, Wai‘anae Coast Neighborhood Board, Wai‘anae Coast Comprehensive Health Center Board, Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Coral Reef Ecosystem Reserve Council, and is the kind of public figure many in the Hawaiian and environmental rights communities supported. How then, with a man of his credibility, was the state able to push SB1555 into law with no public outcry?

Senate and House Bill 1555 history
When SB1555 was introduced by Sen. Donavan Dela Cruz in January 2011, it passed its first reading and was referred to the Committee on Water, Land and Housing (WLH) and the State Senate Ways and Means Committee (WAM). DLNR Director, William Aila was the only one who presented testimony on February 8th, a proposition to establish a public corporation to administer an “appropriate and culturally-sensitive public land development program,” allowing for “limited issuance of commercial use permits for vessels in Ala Wai and Keehi harbors,” and directs DLNR to request proposals to enter into “a public-private partnership for the development of portions of Ala Wai small boat harbor facilities” to offset DLNR’s own limited funding and was to take effect upon legislative approval.

His testimony sought the establishment of a non-profit managing entity of which he would administer to seek private investments for development of Ala Wai and Keehi lagoons. How that turned into a managing entity that will seek public/private investments for development of all DLNR land is the question.

Aila’s testimony was likely the Red Herring, a misdirected measure, focusing on harbor usage, that took focus away from what, upon first reading, can only be read as divisive and troubling. It reads: “DLNR is hamstrung by its limited mission,” further, the purpose of this bill creates a “vehicle and process to make optimal use of public land for the economic, environmental, and social benefit of the people of Hawaii.” Deeper yet, the bill clearly states, that the establishment of this DLNR corporation is to attract investment opportunities for the development of public lands for revenue-generating “commercial uses; hotel, residential, and timeshare uses; fueling facilities; storage and repair facilities; and seawater air conditioning plants.” The meat of this 45-page bill is barely about Ala Wai Harbor or Keehi Lagoon development at all, and I am concerned that our trusted ally– someone we anticipated would steward the protection of Hawai’i lands, has either made a huge error, was duped, or was complicit in this craft.

Consider the timing of this Bill– four months before the upcoming APEC meetings in November 
where CEOs, financiers, bankers, trade ministers, business executives and 
government officials are meeting– now think, Disneyland, Monsanto, shopping malls, 
energy/gmo bio-tech/fuels, water, large transnational private investment firms leasing and developing our resources as public funds gets redirected to develop infrastructure projects like roads, utilities, security, etc…

For those unfamiliar with APEC, the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation is a forum for 21 (soon to be 23) Pacific Rim countries or “Member Economies” that seeks to promote free-trade and economic cooperation throughout the region, key among this definition being “free-trade” and “cooperation.” This is another way of asserting economic hegemony in the region, including Pacific Islands and our resources through trade bullying mechanisms like regional agreements that deplete our resources in exchange for military security or other Development Aid packages that have only created debt crises and dependencies of Pacific Island Countries.

 In Hawaii, we may be less accustomed to this language as many of us have economic privileges as a result of statehood, but we face the same obstacles and challenges as the other Pacific Island nations in that we are intrinsically tied to the same body of water– historically, part of the same liquid nation, the same cultural roots– and will suffer the same environmental degradation and resource depletion, the same threat to food and water security as the rest of the Pacific, except we may be one step worse, in that we are also the home of the U.S. Pacific Command.

Except for the larger economies of New Zealand and Papua/New Guinea, the Pacific Islands are not part of APEC. Most of the islands are under economic subjugation or authority of the dominant economic powers– the U.S., Australia, Chile, France, Indonesia and China, and to a far lesser extant, New Zealand and the PNG. Currently the Pacific region is undergoing significant changes to regulations on Deep Sea mining, for example, as well as military development projects that will further exploit and threaten the bio-diversity and fragile reef systems and magnify the already unstable social and economic conditions of the people.

Much of the negotiations that will be going on in the November APEC meetings, will be of large multi-national corporations giving franchise 
rights more-or-less on a first-come, first-serve basis–with some 
bidding, of course to the development of large private-equity projects like resorts, mining, water or food industries, or other capital enhancement projects. The first-comers–the largest corporations that are able to secure markets of an entire region (like the Pacific)– stake out the boundaries of 
their franchise (sometimes on their own, sometimes prompted by the 
franchiser).

Often those boundaries are what would be called 
’extraterritorial’ in international law. To many corporations, Hawaii 
(as part of the US) may be seen as first choice for certain industries 
and markets, however, the cost may be too great and so, certain 
corporations may go down the list, until they are able to maximize 
cost/security/access etc… The point is, is that these negotiations 
are not simply about Hawaii residents and what’s good for our own 
public consumption, but about a kind of corporate colonial 
regionalism. In order for Hawaii to participate in this “regional” market, the state has to deregulate our environmental and land- 
use safeguards in order to lease out our resources, and make it attractive for investors and stakeholders.

Reminiscent of the 1959 Statehood Act which opened the doors of international investment causing Hawaii’s development explosion in the 1960s, resulting in the tenant-land struggles that immediately followed, the fact that this SB1555 was passed with nearly no public opposition suggests that somewhere between its introduction to its final passage, this bill was surreptitiously motivated by the business and development arm of the state. How is it that public opposition is almost entirely in the form of nimby-ism where residents or land owners are concerned about their views being compromised, or further traffic congestion around the Ala Wai Small Boat Harbor.

Only the budgetary testimony by Kalbert Young, the Director of DBF, a member of the governing board of the newly created Public Land Development Corporation, addresses the bill in a tangible and comprehensive way. His testimony advised that this bill provide an appropriate means of financing the management program, directing it to be financially self-sustaining, and operating as a for-profit entity rather than a non-profit, as was changed in the final version.

SB1555 creates a corporate arm of DLNR and places lands and resources in its jurisdiction, including the controversial “ceded” lands, into what essentially amounts to a for-profit development corporation. This flies counter to what many assumed with the passage of SB 1520, the state’s “Akaka Bill,”that the “indigenous, aboriginal, maoli population of Hawaii” would somehow oversee and regulate any use of the ceded lands.

On May 6, 2011, Abercrombie established a governor-appointed five-person organization from each county (Hawaii, Maui, Kauai and Honolulu) and a fifth, at-large appointee, to reaffirm the U.S. authority to address the conditions of the indigenous, native people, a role that Department of the Interior oversaw during Hawaii’s territorial years. Previous to Statehood, and consistent with the policies of the State of Hawaii, members of this organization shall be acknowledged as the “indigenous, aboriginal, maoli population of Hawaii” and will report to the governor and legislature no later than 20 days before the convening of the 2012 regular session– January 1st, 2012– a little over one month after the conclusion of the APEC meetings in which development deals will have likely already been signed and under way.

Who makes up the Governing Board of the PLDC
In the first draft of this Bill, the Board of Directors of this corporation consisted of eleven voting members, eight who were to be appointed by the governor. Appointees would be selected by their knowledge and experience in “small and large businesses within the development an recreational industries; banking; real estate; finance; promotion; marketing; and management. Of these eight, one would be from each county (Hawaii, Maui, Kauai and Honolulu). the ex-officio voting members would be the Director of Business, Economic Development and Tourism (DBEDT), and the Chairperson of DLNR.

In the Second draft as provided in a second testimony by Aila on March 18, 2011, one of his revisions recommended that the deputy director of DLNR should serve as the executive director of the corporation.

Curiously, in the second Senate Draft from March 8th, this Act was to take effect on July 1, 2050 and in the second House Draft from April 8th, this Act was to take effect on July 1, 2030. In the final draft, this Act goes into effect next week.

In the Final Conference Draft of SB1555 (CD1), the Governing Board consists of five voting members, which includes the chairperson of the board of DLNR; the Director of Budget and Finance; the Director of DBEDT, one person to be appointed by the Speaker of the House, and the other appointed by the President of the Senate, provided that the persons appointed possesses sufficient knowledge and experience in the fields described in the first draft. Nowhere in the governing board is there any representation of Native Hawaiians, environmental, cultural, or public health or education advocate.

The idea that previous regulations of land and resource usage of the “ceded” lands, for example, will be up for investment opportunities during the APEC meeting in November, suggests that the passage of this bill was timed to coincide with what can only be described as a Pacific Islands investment market free-for-all. With all the legal protections around land-use over the ceded lands wiped clean, we can expect new public-private investment agreements to develop the public lands for revenue-generating “commercial uses; hotel, residential, and timeshare uses; fueling facilities; storage and repair facilities; and seawater air conditioning plants.”

The approval of projects, plans and programs– all Public Land Optimization Projects and public land development plans shall be approved by the new DLNR board.

Hawaii Public Land Optimization Plan
The new Public Land Development Corporation will set up a HAWAII PUBLIC LAND OPTIMIZATION PLAN (PLOP), that will define and establish goals, objectives, policies and priority guidelines for its public land optimization strategy, which includes the inventory of public lands with suitable, adequate development potential that will become available to meet the needs of recreational, visitor-related, or land development. Further, the PLOP looks to appropriate public lands to develop, manage or create revenue-generating centers where “opportunities exist to exploit potential local, national and international markets.”

The second part of the plan is to protect culturally-sensitive areas.

Support for this Bill
The conference committee passed CD1 with all the amendments on April 29th in House with with Representative(s) Awana, Belatti, Brower, Hanohano, Jordan, C. Lee, Luke, Saiki, Wooley voting no (9) and Representative(s) Carroll, Pine excused (2); and in the Senate with only one No: Senator(s) Ihara. 1 Excused: Senator(s) Kouchi.

The bill then passed the House and Senate on the May 4th and 5th of May, respectively, and enrolled to the Governor on the 6th. SB1555, now Act 055, passed Governor Abercombie’s desk on May 24th (Gov. Msg. No. 1158), and as stated in the final reading of the Conference Draft, this Act will take effect on July 1, 2011.

Mississippi Rising, Flood Gates are Opening
When we privatize public lands to transnationals, disputes of rights and violations become much more difficult. Keeping public lands public, at least constitutionally, guarantees our rights to resolve disputes. Transnational privatization and the leasing of our resources make dispute resolutions very costly and difficult. When the people have a dispute with transnationals under which court will disputes be heard?

In SB1555, the Public Land Development Corporations writes that it can” sue and be sued,” as the first power of the corporation, as if this qualification offers a salve of protection or remedy to violations or disputes. Again, this language seems duplicitous when the venue for hearing international trade disputes is not the local state court. It may be the federal court depending where and under what jurisdiction the corporation is, but generally, violations of trade agreements are heard in WTO court in Geneva, and this is explicit in the Trans-Pacific Strategic and Economic Partnership Agreement (TPPA) which is the multi-headed hydra trade agreement likely to be signed in Honolulu, in November.

These supra-national courts decide upon trade agreements between governments and corporations and cost a lot or money and take a lot of time to negotiate. Even if the courts rule in favor of the state, in this case, the federal government, there are still heavy penalties the government would have to pay for breaking the lease and investment agreements, and any dispute that may arise between DLNR and a transnational would likely be a long and costly road, particularly since one of the effects of the TPPA makes it easier for corporations to sue governments.

Further, these DLNR deregulations are indeed a state issue that will 
affect residents and likely contribute to the further competition for our resources, as is fair game according to the principles of the free-market/free-trade. This is also part of a far-reaching Pacific wide program that 
affects all PICs, and as we are all connected to the same ocean and 
environment, it is important that we act in Pacific-wide cohesion to 
prevent further resource depletion and environmental degradation that 
will affect not only our indigenous rights, but also our regional bio-diversity, a likely result of these APEC 
security and trade negotiations.

APEC is the Mississippi rising and these state regulations are the 
only levees we have protecting us. We knew the levee was shoddily 
constructed, but I didn’t realize it was held together by duct tape and chicken wire.


.

McConnell - The Great Dismantler

SUBHEAD: Debt ceiling resolution gives GOP's Senator Mirch McConnell his strategic moment. By Howard Fieman on 2 August 2011 for Huffington Post - (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/02/obama-and-mcconnell-debt-_n_916257.html) Image above: Kentucky's US Senator Mitch McConnell (center) and Republican cronies. From (http://uk.ibtimes.com/articles/183118/20110719/analysis-mcconnell-plan-may-be-reckoning-for-republicans.htm). If you haven't noticed, this is Mitch McConnell's moment. And if you haven't realized it, this won't be the last. In fact, there will be many more, especially if -- as is quite possible -- he becomes Republican majority leader of the Senate after next year's elections.

In what amounted to a victory speech as the final vote approached on the debt ceiling he brokered, the senior senator from Kentucky reached what has been a career-long goal: to be this century's Henry Clay.

Only instead of being Kentucky's "Great Compromiser," McConnell is and wants to be the Bluegrass's "Great Dismantler."

A handsome portrait of Clay hangs in McConnell's spacious Capitol suite. But the two men represent diametrically opposing traditions. Sen. Clay wanted to be president, and used his eloquence and shrewdness in the service of constructing and protecting the power of the federal government. He championed the "American System" of national roads and public works, and spent decades trying to keep the Union from flying apart under the centrifugal stress of slavery, economics and ideology. He inspired another Kentucky-born politician named Abe Lincoln, and infuriated yet another named Jefferson Davis.

McConnell, equally as shrewd if not as eloquent, has a fundamentally different view. He sees his job, as he said on the floor as the vote began, to "rein in Washington" and "slow down the Big Government freight train." He mesaures success in terms of how much he can reduce the power, purse and reach of a federal government he has been a part of since he was elected at the height of the Reagan Era in 1984.

McConnell is a past master of channelling middle-class resentment at the power of government to gain power for himself in government. And he is one of the most patient and canny legislators and negotiators in modern politics: always superbly prepared, never given to rash actions or statements and a potent mix of brains and chip-on-the shoulder disdain for people with fancier pedigrees but fuzzier minds.

With the debt ceiling negotiations, he basically took the president to the cleaners. He used the energy of the Tea Party as a threat, and the weakness and division in the House GOP leadership to make himself the indispensable player in the final days. He proposed a fail-safe route to avoid default that played to the president's vanity (the idea of giving the president the power to decide debt-ceiling raises on his own) and then used the sense of trust to drive a hard bargain that took takes off the table. McConnnell also used his 26-year relationship with Vice President Joe Biden to smooth the pathway to a deal. As Rep. Charlie Rangel said, the GOP "mugged the president but let him keep his wedding ring."

The president thinks that the "super committee" that now will be appointed will be able to -- and will -- recommend revenue increases and even tax cuts when it has to report Nov. 23. There may indeed be some loophole closings, but don't count on it.

Was the president listening today when McConnell discussed the "super committee" group of 12, which will include six Republicans and six Democrats? McConnell called it the "cost-cutting committee."

Game on.

McConnell's whole career has been about skillfully tapping anti-government resentment and turning it into deals and power. That is how he began his rise in Louisville and Kentucky.

In 1974, Louisville -- a border city on the Ohio River in the Border State of Kentucky -- was sullen and divided in a way it had not been since the Union Army occupied it during the Civil War. The issues in many ways were the same: race and the power of the federal government. In the summer of 1974, a federal judge had ordered the widespread use of busing to integrate -- in fact not just in law -- the public schools in Louisville and surrounding Jefferson County. Well over 100,000 students were involved, but so were decades of de facto segregation.

In the working class neighborhoods of the city and its suburbs, anger at the order -- even occasional street protests -- was widespread. McConnell, originally born in Alabama, hailed from one of those neighborhoods. He wasn't a protestor or anti-busing leader by any means. He had worked for moderate GOP Sens. John Sherman Cooper and Marlow Cook, and had been an attorney in the Ford administration.

But he knew the neighborhood folks, as well as their fears and resentments. When he ran successfully for County Judge (the chief administrative job) in 1978, he ran strongly in places where he could make the case that government had too much say in local lives, and that services needed to be decided by families and neighbors, not by distant powers downtown or inside the Beltway.

That was the Reaganesque message he took statewide when he ran for Senate and won with the Gipper atop the ticket in 1984.

It is a straight line from there to the floor today.

And we may not have seen anything yet. As patient as he is remorseless, as deeply political as he is lawyerly, McConnell built a machine in Kentucky. It is crumbling now -- the incumbent Democratic governor is up by 25 points in new polls, and Sen. Rand Paul of the Tea Party is hardly a faithful ally -- but Mitch is moving on to do the same thing in the Senate that he did in the state years ago.

Meticulous, tactically focused, he runs a tight ship in the Senate and keeps a very close eye on the GOP's Senate election process. Here's the key statistic for 2012: of the 11 seats considered to be in play by handicapper Charlie Cook, nine are held by Democrats. The Democrats currently hold a 51-47 majority, with two others caucusing with them. Do the math. The GOP is within reach.

The Great Dismantler is on the march.

.

Deadly Radiation at Fukushima

SUBHEAD: Tepco reports second lethal radiation reading at Fukushima nuclear plant.  

By Tsuyoshi Inajima on 2 August 2011 for Bloomberg News - (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-02/tepco-reports-second-deadly-radiation-reading-at-fukushima-plant.html)


Image above: Photograph shows a gamma camera image of an area around the Fukushima Dai-Ichi main exhaust duct between Units 1 and 2, on 8/1/11.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. reported its second deadly radiation reading in as many days at its wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant north of Tokyo. The utility known as Tepco said yesterday it detected 5 sieverts of radiation per hour in the No. 1 reactor building. On August 1st in another area it recorded radiation of 10 sieverts per hour, enough to kill a person “within a few weeks” after a single exposure, according to the World Nuclear Association.

Radiation has impeded attempts to replace cooling systems to bring three melted reactors and four damaged spent fuel ponds under control after a tsunami on March 11 crippled the plant. The latest reading was taken on the second floor of the No. 1 reactor building and will stop workers entering the area. “It’s probably the first of many more to come,” said Michael Friedlander, who spent 13 years operating nuclear power plants in the U.S., including the Crystal River Station in Florida.

 “Although I am not surprised, it concerns me greatly; the issue is the worker safety.” The 10 sieverts of radiation detected on August 1st outside reactor buildings was the highest the Geiger counters used were capable of reading, indicating the level could have been higher, Junichi Matsumoto, a general manager at the utility, said at a press conference.  

Upper Limit
“Ten sieverts is the upper limit for many dosimeters and almost equal to the amount that killed workers at the JCO nuclear accident in 1999,” said Tomoko Murakami, a nuclear researcher at the Institute of Energy Economics, Japan. In that accident, then the world’s worst since Chernobyl in 1986, more than 600 people were exposed to radiation after workers inadvertently started a nuclear chain reaction while processing nuclear fuel at a plant near Tokyo.

Two employees of JCO Co., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sumitomo Metal Mining Co., died from radiation exposure. Tepco was forced to pump water into the three Fukushima reactors after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami disabled cooling systems. The company in May estimated there would be 200,000 tons of radiated water in basements and other areas of the Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant by December.

“If nuclear fuels melted through containment chambers, Tepco will find even higher radiation readings after water in building basements is removed,” said Tetsuo Ito, the head of the Atomic Energy Research Institute at Kinki University.


Image above: This area of site recorded radiation of 10 sieverts per hour, enough to kill a person “within a few weeks” after a single exposure. From (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42210974/ns/world_news-tokyo_electric_power_company).

 Radiation Leaks
Tepco has been criticized by the government for withholding radiation data and other missteps that have worsened the crisis. About 160,000 people have been evacuated from areas stretching 20 kilometers and more from the plant. On May 27, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said Tepco’s withholding radiation data was contributing to “public distrust.”

The utility responded by saying it will publish in August the combined figures of radiation released into the atmosphere and in contaminated water. It hasn’t given a date for release of that information. Radiation leaks from the Fukushima reactors have spread over 600 square kilometers, Tomio Kawata, a fellow at the Nuclear Waste Management Organization of Japan, said in a research report published on May 24 and given to the government.

Radioactive soil in pockets of areas outside the exclusion zone around the plant have reached the same level as in Chernobyl following a reactor explosion in the former Soviet Union, the report said.  

Hot Spots
The threats to Japan’s food chain are also multiplying as radioactive cesium emissions from the Fukushima plant spread. Contaminated beef has been found on supermarket shelves around the country, forcing the government to ban cattle shipments from areas in northern Japan. The latest high radiation readings are probably coming from materials released during early failed attempts to release pressure in containment vessels and vent hydrogen gas to prevent explosions that damaged reactor buildings, Matsumoto said.

There were about 2,760 workers at the plant on Aug 1st. Tepco on April 17 set out a so-called road map to end the crisis by January, aiming to bring down radiation levels at the plant within three months and then achieve a so-called cold shutdown where reactor temperatures fall below 100 degrees Celsius (212 degrees Fahrenheit).

The utility needs to investigate other areas that may hold high radiation levels in line with the cold-shutdown and clean up, said Murakami at Energy Economics. “Tepco workers and its subcontractors who know the Fukushima plant well may be the only ones that can discover such hot spots,” he said. “For people new to the plant it’s deadly.”

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Of Ceilings & Dungeons

SUBHEAD: Washington’s not raising a ceiling, it's digging a deeper, damp and dark hole for US taxpayers.  

By Raul Ilargi Maijer on 2 August 2011 for the Automatic Earth -  
(http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/2011/08/august-1-2011-of-ceilings-and-dungeons.html)

 
Image above: Illustration of a castle dungeon. From (http://alphamom.com/parenting/baby/housing-crisis-staying-with-the-in-laws).

Even now the two Washington sides are close to inking a deal -though it could still fail, even be filibustered-, it won’t solve any real issues. If and when the deal causes America to be perceived as stronger and less risky than Europe, that will merely lead to a higher dollar vs the euro, and that in turn will kill US exports, which will lead to lower employment, lower tax revenues, lower consumption rates, and all that stuff.

 On the real issues, nothing has changed since at least the demise of Bear Stearns and Lehman, and arguably way before that. There is too much debt in the system, way too much, perhaps as much as 10, 100 or even 1000 times too much. The rate of economic growth that would be required to flush out that debt is not only unrealistically high, it's downright physically impossible. And besides, Q1 US GDP was revised down to 0.4% last week, which takes it straight into the realm of mere marginal statistical errors.

So the only ways to pay the debt is through budget cuts and tax increases. In the foreseeable future, we’ll see lots of the former and none of the latter. So don't believe any of the talk about recovery; there isn't any today, there hasn't been any in the past 5 years, and there won't be none for a long time to come.

A government spending itself into colossal new debt levels can perhaps create the illusion of recovery for a limited period of time (check), but it will all end up just making things worse down the line. For the people, that is. Not for the politicians and financiers who make the decisions. And don’t believe that a last minute August 2nd debt ceiling agreement solves anything either, since why should anyone on Main Street be happy just because their government has just allowed itself to get even deeper into debt?

The picture has just simply been wrong from the start: a ceiling is too positive of an image: we should perhaps do better to be talking about a debt dungeon. That would convey the underlying reality much more accurately. Washington’s not raising a ceiling, it's digging an ever deeper, damp and darkened hole for US taxpayers and their children. Whatever comes out of the talks, and something will since no-one wants to take the blame of failure, will materialize as even more hardship for even more Americans. Watch what will happen to Social Security.

With Medicare.

They're going to strip it to the bone, layer by layer. They'll do it slowly, so you won't even remember after a while what there used to be. Like many won't remember what is was like to own a home and be happy about it, what it was like to have a job that paid the bills and left some money on the side for fun things for the kids. The present deal on the table skirts the entitlement conundrums almost entirely: the one thing that has been pushed through is that Medicare providers would be hit if the soon to be erected Super Congress (how’s that for democracy?), a bipartisan committee that will formulate the next rounds of cuts, can't agree on those next rounds.

Here’s wondering why and how they would agree on anything, let alone anything that actually benefits their voters. We're on a road to nowhere, mostly because there's nowhere to go that we would like to go to. We don't like the options available, but they are the only options we have, even if we insist on denying it. All the options we have will lead us down the slope; there's no way up anymore.

 What we could and arguably should do is to try and find ways to soften the blow, to improve the way we travel on the way down. To achieve that, we need to get rid of the people who now make the decisions. And that will be very hard. There are only two political parties in America, and they might as well be one. None represent the interests of the people. Not that it’s any different in Europe, mind you.

Once a society or country allows money to enter its politics, the outcome is inevitable: the money interests will come to rule that country. This is evident all over the western world, whether you look at the Greek, Irish and other EU bail-outs, or at the debt dungeon debate the US is presently digging its way into ever deeper, with the respective bills handed to the people and their children. As we speak, and as we watch the wall-sized media coverage of the debt dungeon chasm, municipalities and counties are on the cusp of bankruptcy. Services will be cut across the board. That is our future.

 A future that won't involve growth, but which be all about austerity and cutting back and outright poverty for rapidly increasing numbers of people. Just not for the politicians and their puppeteers, not for those who get to decide who will hurt the most. That is the main issue today.

Who are you going to let decide how bad your future will be? If you opt for Washington, anyone in Washington, or Brussels if you're in Europe, your future will hurt something bad. When it comes to that future of yours and, of your offspring, the debt dungeon debate is the wrong focus. There's nothing beneficial for you in there.

See also:
Ea O Ka Aina: Weimar meets Waterloo 8/1/11
Ea O Ka Aina: No! To Debt Ceiling Negotiation 7/26/11
Ea O Ka Aina: Bring it on! 7/17/11 .

Portugal decliminalized drugs

SUBHEAD: Tens years after the nation legalized all drugs, misuse has plunged dramatically. By Tony O'Neil on 14 July 2011 for AlterNet.org - (http://www.alternet.org/story/151635/ten_years_ago_portugal_legalized_all_drugs_--_what_happened_next) Image above: Drug use in Portugal was about the worst in Europe a decage ago. From (http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/2989755-portugal-reduced-hiv-cases-linked-to-drug-abuse-by-decriminalizing-illicit-drugs).

The government in Portugal has no plans to back down. Although the Netherlands is the European country most associated with liberal drug laws, it has already been ten years since Portugal became the first European nation to take the brave step of decriminalizing possession of all drugs within its borders—from marijuana to heroin, and everything in between. This controversial move went into effect in June of 2001, in response to the country’s spiraling HIV/AIDS statistics. While many critics in the poor and largely conservative country attacked the sea change in drug policy, fearing it would lead to drug tourism while simultaneously worsening the country’s already shockingly high rate of hard drug use, a report published in 2009 by the Cato Institute tells a different story. Glenn Greenwald, the attorney and author who conducted the research, told Time: “Judging by every metric, drug decriminalization in Portugal has been a resounding success. It has enabled the Portuguese government to manage and control the drug problem far better than virtually every other Western country."

Back in 2001, Portugal had the highest rate of HIV among injecting drug users in the European Union—an incredible 2,000 new cases a year, in a country with a population of just 10 million. Despite the predictable controversy the move stirred up at home and abroad, the Portuguese government felt there was no other way they could effectively quell this ballooning problem. While here in the U.S. calls for full drug decriminalization are still dismissed as something of a fringe concern, the Portuguese decided to do it, and have been quietly getting on with it now for a decade. Surprisingly, most credible reports appear to show that decriminalization has been a staggering success.

The DEA sees it a bit differently. Portugal, they say, was a disaster, with heroin and HIV rates out of control. "Portugal's addict population and the problems that go along with addiction continue to increase," the DEA maintains. "In an effort to reduce the number of addicts in the prison system, the Portuguese government has an enacted some radical policies in the last few years with the eventual decriminalization of all illicit drugs in July of 2001."

However, as Glenn Greenwald, the author of the Cato study, concludes: "By freeing its citizens from the fear of prosecution and imprisonment for drug usage, Portugal has dramatically improved its ability to encourage drug addicts to avail themselves of treatment. The resources that were previously devoted to prosecuting and imprisoning drug addicts are now available to provide treatment programs to addicts." Under the perfect system, treatment would also be voluntary, but as an alternative to jail, mandatory treatment save money. But for now, "the majority of EU states have rates that are double and triple the rate for post-decriminalization Portugal," Greenwald says. For those looking for clues about how the U.S. government can tackle its domestic drug problem, the figures are enticing. Following decriminalization, Portugal eventually found itself with the lowest rates of marijuana usage in people over 15 in the EU: about 10%. Compare this to the 40% of people over 12 who regularly smoke pot in the U.S., a country with some of the most punitive drugs laws in the developed world. Drug use of all kinds has declined in Portugal: Lifetime use among seventh to ninth graders fell from 14.01% to 10.6%. Lifetime heroin use among 16-18 year olds fell from 2.5% to 1.8%. And what about those horrific HIV infection rates that prompted the move in the first place? HIV infection rates among drug users fell by an incredible 17%, while drug related deaths were reduced by more than half. "There is no doubt that the phenomenon of addiction is in decline in Portugal," said Joao Goulao, President of the Institute of Drugs and Drugs Addiction, at a press conference to mark the 10th anniversary of the law.

We’re not holding our breath that the Portuguese example will lead to any kind of abrupt about-face in America's own sputtering drug war, which is still sputtering steadily along at a cost of trillions a year. However, with the medical marijuana movement so far refusing to be strangled out of existence by the DEA, Senators Jim Webb and Arlen Specter recently made a proposal to create a blue ribbon commission to look at prison and drug sentencing reform. And for any pro-legalization presidential hopefuls in 2012, the movement for a common sense drug policy in the United States may be finally moving into the mainstream.

Weimar Meets Waterloo

SUBHEAD: Give thanks that the debt ado is over because now the we can get on with systemic collapse honestly and fairly. By James Kunstler on 1 August 2011 for Kunstler.com - (http://kunstler.com/blog/2011/08/weimar-meets-waterloo.html) Image above: A modern day Hooverville under interstate overpass. From (http://www.lipmantimes.com/?p=3318).

The Sunday night news, scant as it is these days despite the grotesque exertions of over a thousand cable TV stations, showed the old familiar faces lit up with crocodile smiles. The Republic was saved, surprise, surprise, by a last-minute fugue of reasonableness, when all concerned decided that putting the business-end of a double-barreled 20-guage shotgun in America's pie-hole might not summon the spirits of Ronald Reagan, Santa Claus, Adam Smith, Chuck Norris, and the Holy Ghost after all.

Let's give thanks that it's over because now the USA can get on with its systemic collapse honestly and fairly. Even though the debt ceiling extravaganza ended in something like political failure, one point did seem to shine through: there's no more money. Anyway, no money for non-bankers, and pretty soon even the bankers will be out of money too, because their money is fantasy banking money (sssshhhh, don't tell them) consisting of hard-drives packed with digital slime trails of swindles and frauds. The public can live in straight-up unvarnished fear now that they are liable to lose everything they thought they had.

This new depression is way different from the hazily remembered one of grampy's boyhood. There was no money then, too, in 1934, but you didn't have to puzzle out the metaphysical workings of a collateralized debt obligation to know what the score was. Your pockets were just empty and the bank down the street was shuttered. The country had plenty of everything except money: lots of oil, good farmland, manpower, ores, timber, beeves-on-the-hoof, excellent railroads, dynamic cities, and factories just recently built (only the orders for goods stopped coming in). Yet something happened that still mystifies the viziers who call themselves economists.

Was it all that mischief on Wall Street with the "bucket shops" and the margin-gone-wild, and the shoeshine boys proffering stock tips to their customers? Or was it some remorseless cyclical exhalation of history? Or was it that plus the Keynesian monkey-business with interest rates and the issuance of currency? Or was it some fundamental flaw in the workings of industrial capitalism itself? These questions have never been adequately answered, though there is no shortage of "stories" cooked up to explain it - many of them elegantly entertaining.

My own guess is that the industrial experience itself was a peculiar experiment rife with treacherous self-amplifying feedbacks that the participants were not prepared for, such as the rapid saturation of markets via mass production at the colossal scale. Whoops. And meanwhile, everybody in China is living in the equivalent of the 12th century, so forget about selling them radios. (Globalization eventually fixed that...or did it?) To put a finer point on it, industrialism (and all its digital offshoots) may not be a permanent feature of the human condition, but an anomalous congruence of some historical events that had a beginning, a middle, and an end.

I happen to think we're at the end of this anomalous era because we've run through the material resource base. I know a lot of people eagerly await the nano-dawn of self-replicating bot Satori, where everything we need is literally conjured out of thin air. The Viziers would really love that because, at last, their models would work! Personally, I do not hold my breath waiting for Kurzweilian "Singularity." We'll be disappointed enough when Walmart fails to run on wind turbines. So now we enter an economic terra incognita of the real post-industrial economy - not the Cinderella hoo-hah of digi-magic advertised in places like Wired Magazine, but more like a Foxfire world made by hand. We're out of cheap oil, cheap and good ores, ocean fish, good timber, and lots of other things. All the stuff we erected to live our lives in - the stupendous armature of highways, strip malls, suburban houses, skyscraper condos, sewer systems, electric grids - is beyond our power to repair now. We can only patch it, and that can only work for so long before things go dark. (Can you sharpen a saw blade?) Image above: Works Program Administration (WPA) road repair during 1930's Depression. From (http://www.history.com/topics/hoovervilles).

The money part is not so hard to understand. When the dynamism wanes in a hypertrophic system, money can no longer be created. Real money, that is. Money that means something, a trustworthy medium of exchange, in a system where borrowers reliably pay back loaned money. All the current money fiascos underway around the world, old and new, western and eastern, are just dumb-shows put on to conceal the fact that money is not being paid back. Real wealth is contracting - even as the smaller pool of remaining wealth moves magnetically to the centers of power.

We will never solve this American debt crisis. We're going broke fast and it will be like falling down a long staircase. The federal government will never recover. It will pretend to be in charge of things that continue to fall apart, and eventually its pretenses will be seen for what they are - and then it will be every community for itself. (The same can be said of the states, and even the counties.)

The troubles will mount more rapidly, too, from here, because nobody has been fooled by the machinations in congress the past month, except maybe the elected cravens at the center of it all, and many of them are in their final years of lofty, well-feathered splendor. A debt rating warning - if that's what it turns out to be - will be brushed aside, and for some good reasons, too, but it is really a dark sign that our Republic does not function anymore and is primed to break apart.

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