Trouble in Paradise

There is a whiff of bubblegum scent in the air as I drive toward Waimea Town and past the sprawling, fields of red earth operated by the agri-biotech companies flanking Kauai’s Highway 50. Just before reaching the bridge over Waimea River, which separates the fields from the town, I hang a left and pull into a gravel parking lot. There are only two other vehicles there. Wendell Kabutan and Klayton Kubo are waiting by them. They live in Waimea, on the street closest to the biotech fields, but they didn’t want to meet in public. It has been less than a month since the Kauai County Council passed a measure requiring large agricultural companies to disclose their pesticide use and genetically modified crop locations on Hawaii’s Garden Island. The legislation has been bitterly divisive in Waimea’s hardscrabble but tight-knit community, where many residents work in the company fields. Emotions are still raw and locals are wary of meeting with journalists.

Kubo, a housepainter and single parent in his late forties, has just gotten off work and is still in his paint-splattered shorts, t-shirt, and sunglasses. He points to the field behind us where a few tractors are going to and fro, raising little clouds of dust. “This one is Pioneer’s,” he says. “This week would make it six weeks straight that they’ve been spraying. It’s been 13 years and they are still doing it.” He lets out a sharp, frustrated breath. “Nothing has changed.”

Kabutan, a silver-haired retired Hawaiian Airlines ground-crew worker, says he has been having trouble breathing since the biotech companies started spraying heavy doses of pesticides. Previously the chemicals used to smell acrid, he says. “The first time I smelled it I thought my neighbor’s house was burning down. Now they use a bubblegum scent to cover it up.” Kabutan’s respiratory issues have landed him in the emergency room several times, though the doctors could never figure out what the problem was. Now he runs an air filter in his bedroom to help him sleep. “I nearly died once,” he says. “Had to spend three days in the ICU. But I’ve stopped taking medicines because nothing’s working, not when you are breathing the stuff every day.” In 2011, his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer and had to undergo surgery. “I know it’s linked to atrazine,” he says, referring to a pesticide that is a known endocrine disruptor.

Kabutan starts listing the litany of ailments plaguing other Waimea residents: “My neighbor across from my house has leukemia. Two houses down the road the husband had to go to the emergency room three times because he couldn’t breathe and his three children all have asthma. There are seven confirmed cancer cases just on our side of the road. If you add the other side of the road, the one that goes toward the ocean, it would be nine cases. Almost all the kids have respiratory problems or nose bleeds or rashes.” He pauses and shakes his head. “We are all screwed.”

http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/eij/article/trouble_in_paradise1

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Wake Up, Congress.

Despite all the evidence about the reality of climate change -- despite the very real and very destructive impacts we're already seeing -- Congress has so far failed to do anything about it. They've been lulled to sleep through this crisis by polluting special interests and dirty money.

But not all politicians are rotten. A few of them are wide awake, and they're banding together to make some noise in the Senate chamber. Tonight, March 10th, a small group of Senators -- we'll call them the "climate caucus" -- is staying up all night to discuss climate action.

While they're leading the discussion on the Senate floor, we can help them make some noise by sending a clear message to their colleagues: it's time for Congress to wake up to the reality of climate change, and it's past time to take action.

We'll bring your messages to Capitol Hill this evening, so that the climate caucus knows we have their back -- and their colleagues know we're watching.

http://act.350.org/sign/wake_up_congress/

Still NO reported quakes from solar panels or wind farms ...

One of Oklahoma's biggest man-made earthquakes, caused by fracking-linked wastewater injection, triggered an earthquake cascade that led to the damaging magnitude-5.7 Prague quake that struck on Nov. 6, 2011, a new study confirms.

The findings suggest that even small man-made earthquakes, such as those of just a magnitude 1 or magnitude 2, can trigger damaging quakes, said study co-author Elizabeth Cochran, a seismologist with the U.S. Geological Survey.

"Even if wastewater injection only directly affects a low-hazard fault, those smaller events could trigger an event on a larger fault nearby," she told Live Science.

http://www.livescience.com/43953-wastewater-injection-earthquake-triggering.html

Rick Scott “oversaw the largest Medicare fraud in the nation’s history," Florida Democratic Party ..

First, Gov. Rick Scott scared the bejesus out of seniors with an online ad claiming that Medicare rate cuts would lead them to lose access to their doctors, hospitals and preventive care.

Then, the Florida Democratic Party fired back at Scott, issuing a press release that called Scott "the ultimate Medicare thief."

The Democrats were referring to Scott’s prior tenure as CEO of Columbia/HCA about a decade ago, when the hospital company was fined $1.7 billion for Medicare fraud.

"Rick Scott is saying Democrats are committing Medicare robbery, when in fact he's the ultimate Medicare thief. He lost the right to accuse Democrats of raiding Medicare when he oversaw the largest Medicare fraud in the nation's history. Rick Scott's company stole money that should have gone to health care for seniors," said Florida Democratic Party spokesman Joshua Karp in the Feb. 25 press release.

Separately, we have fact-checked Scott’s claim "we are seeing dramatic rate cuts" to Medicare that will affect people's choice of doctor, hospital and preventive care. We concluded that Scott had failed to say that the rate cut only applies to Medicare Advantage, and thus only affects a fraction of all Medicare beneficiaries. Also, it could be several months before we know the actual impact of the cut which could vary county by county. We rated Scott's claim Mostly False.

http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2014/mar/03/florida-democratic-party/rick-scott-rick-scott-oversaw-largest-medicare-fra/

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I predict a new Charlie Crist day in November elections for Florida ...

I don't know how people get eaten by sharks... I mean, do you not hear the music? ...nt

Are we sufficiently outraged at Oil companies ... this might help ... if you are on the fence ...

The SEC could help tackle corruption in resource-rich countries around the world -- but the oil industry is getting in the way.

Angola, Africa's second-largest oil producer, is regarded as one of the most corrupt countries in the world. And American oil lobbyists are only making the situation worse: They are exploiting Angola by seeking to delay and weaken the implementation of a crucial U.S. transparency law.

That law, Section 1504 of the Dodd-Frank Act, also known as the Cardin-Lugar amendment, promises a breakthrough in preventing dirty deals and illicit payments being made for natural resources around the world, similar to the shady transaction recently uncovered by Foreign Policy. If implemented fully, the law would make U.S. oil and mining companies disclose the payments they make to governments across the world, including in Angola. However, oil lobbyists have been making misguided arguments that laws in Angola and three other countries prevent the required disclosures.

Angolan officials secretly profiting from the country's oil riches is not a surprise. It is only the latest episode in a sad history that goes back for decades. Global Witness, where we work, began exposing the complicity of the international oil and banking industries in the plundering of state assets during Angola's 40-year civil war in our 1999 report A Crude Awakening. This was followed by our 2002 report All the Presidents' Men, which called on the oil companies operating in Angola to "Publish What You Pay" (PWYP). Under this rallying call, Global Witness co-launched the PWYP campaign, which is now an international coalition of more than 790 civil society organizations in over 60 countries, including Angola, advocating for transparency laws such as Section 1504.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/03/07/slick_moves_angola_sec_oil_industry

Christie to Reid---Stop picking on Great Americans

Gov. Chris Christie (R-N.J.) defended the Koch brothers from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Thursday, warning him to ”stop picking on great Americans.”

Last year, Christie wasn’t even invited to the Conservative Political Action Conference. This year, he got a standing ovation for one of the most highly anticipated CPAC speeches of the year. Christie fought back against Reid’s recent criticism against the major donors in the conservative movement. While speaking on the floor this week, the Senate Majority Leader had claimed that Republicans are “addicted to Koch.”

Christie, who is himself often labeled as a somewhat of a bully, used part of his speech on Thursday to tell Reid to stop picking on the Koch brothers.

“What [Democrats] they’re for in Washington, D.C. is to have the leader of the Senate Democrats stand up and rail against two American entrepreneurs who have built a business, created jobs, and created wealth and philanthropy in this country,” the New Jersey Governor told the crowd at CPAC.

http://redalertpolitics.com/2014/03/06/at-cpac-gov-chris-christie-defends-koch-brothers-from-harry-reid/

Google's Eric Schmidt Has Ideas About How to Solve Income Inequality==More of the Same ...

Eric Schmidt, the inexplicably well-compensated chairman of Google, stopped over at South by Southwest today, where he decided to share some ideas about how the country should grapple with income inequality. His comments—which he made in conversation with Google Ideas director Jared Cohen and Wired’s Steven Levy—didn’t quite have the plutocratic verve of a Tom Perkins interview. But they did nicely encapsulate a more subtly corrosive outlook common among wealthy, vaguely liberal-minded Americans.

Things started off well enough. As The Verge reports, Schmidt explained that he was “very, very worried” about the conflicts over techie-fueled gentrification that have been rocking the Bay Area. San Francisco’s problems, he said, were a manifestation of a problem across the developed world by which technology is replacing traditional jobs, enriching the few while leaving behind the many. "Ninety-nine percent of people have seen no economic improvement over the last decade," he said.

Ten points for empathy. But then…

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2014/03/07/google_eric_schmidt_he_has_some_ideas_about_how_to_solve_income_inequality.html

We need the Keystone XL pipeline like ...

I need an XL hole in my head ...

http://act.350.org/letter/kxl-feis/

Mythopedia ... A Dictionary of Conservative Lies ...