One of the chief objections to nuclear power is the catastrophic implications of nuclear accidents or leaks. No better examples of that danger can be found in the aftermath of the Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear disasters. Reports out this week show precisely how lasting such damage can be.
Category: Politics
We have been discussing the trillions of dollars spent on Iraq and Afghanistan while we cut environmental, scientific, and educational programs on the state and federal levels. Now, we are only a couple of weeks into the newest war against Islamic State but we have already spent an estimated $1.1 billion. Of course, President Obama has stated that he does not require any congressional approval for the war, which has been described by his Administration as having an indefinite duration. In the meantime, our latest war has been a bonanza for weapons manufacturers, including a $251 million deal to buy more Tomahawks from Raytheon Co after we unloaded on the Islamic State.
Continue reading “Campaign Against Islamic State Now Tops $1 Billion”
The Islamic group Boko Haram has a new outrage to its credit. According to Reverend Gideon Obasogie, the director of Catholic Social Communication of Maiduguri Diocese in Borno State, the group has burned down over 180 churches in the West African country. It appears that the group views Islam as allowing for no other form of faith.
Continue reading “Nigerian Islamic Militants Reportedly Torch Over 180 Churches”
There has been some predicable and understandable objections to the selection of Mumia Abu-Jamal, the convicted killer of Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner in 1981, as this year’s commencement speaker for Goddard College in Vermont. Faulkner’s widow and others have decried his recorded appearance from Mahanoy state prison in Frackville, Pennsylvania. However, as is all too often the case, politicians have responded to such good-faith objections with a highly questionable, poorly crafted law that allows victims to seek injunctions in future such cases.
There is an interesting dimension to the ongoing circumvention of the Constitution over our latest undeclared war. While some Administration officials are finally calling our attacks in Syria as a “war,” the discomfort over defining this indefinite campaign has led to equal discomfort over naming it. After two months of airstrikes and statements that the campaign will likely go on for years, the Administration still have not named this war. The choice would now seem obvious: Operation Voldemort, the war which must not be named.
Continue reading “Operation Voldemort: The War Which Must Not Be Named”
There is a growing scandal over pornographic emails that has now snared a State Supreme Court Justice. There has been an ongoing investigation over pornographic emails being shared by employees at the attorney general’s office. That investigation has led to the disclosure of 54 emails sent from Justice Seamus McCaffery’s personal Comcast email address to an employee at the State Attorney General’s Office. In those emails were a reported 8 pornographic images and videos.
Continue reading “Pennsylvania Justice Identified In Pornographic Email Scandal”
Germany has long shown far greater foresight than the United States in the investment into science, infrastructure, and alternative energy — investments that are now giving the country huge returns as a leading economic system. With a decision of Lower Saxony, the German have now shown precisely how serious they are about keeping the country as one of the most educated in the world: they have eliminated all college and university tuition. The Germans view education as not just a right, but an essential component for continued growth.
Continue reading “Germany Abolishes Tuition For University Students”
I have often praised Germany for its forward-leaning laws on the environment and other areas. However, Germany is following France in a move that I consider perfectly absurd: a ban on after-hours work emails. I will confess to attaining some Chicago school economic bias against certain forms of tax and regulatory policy. However, this is one area where the market should be left to its devices, literally.
Continue reading “Nein Nachrichten: Germany Reportedly Considering Ban On Work Emails After 6 pm”
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw) Weekend Contributor
I have written in the past about our large financial institutions and their uncanny ability to break the law and escape any criminal penalties at the corporate or personal level. If the Department of Justice had actually indicted a Bank of America official and procured a criminal conviction, that Bank of America official could have assisted the corporate office in their no-bid contract to handle all of the federal prison systems inmate financial services and email services.
“A few blocks north, however, at the New York Metropolitan Correctional Center, there exists a market that Bank of America has locked down, literally. For the 790 federal prisoners incarcerated at MCC, Bank of America controls the provision of money transfers, e-messaging and some telephone services.
The bank’s monopoly extends across the federal Bureau of Prisons system—121 institutions housing 214,365 inmates. Since 2000, Bank of America has collected at least $76.3 million for its work on the program.” Readersupportednews That would be $76.3 Million dollars in the Bank of America coffers without any need or worry about having to compete for this latest sweetheart deal. Continue reading “Banks Have the Federal Prison System Handcuffed”
Hong Kong chief executive Cy Leung is having a bad month. He is the mouth-piece for the authoritarian Chinese communist government in a city that was promised a modicum of democracy. As expected, the Chinese government has simply disregarded the commitment that it made in the handover of the city from Britain. A new flashpoint occurred when Beijing said that people in Hong Kong could vote for the leaders but only from a list of candidates approved by the Communist party — a curious concept of democracy. Now however he has his daughter to worry about. Chai Yan Leung decided that this was the week to taunt citizens by flashing a new diamond necklace and saying that it was purchased by “silly” taxpayer money.
While the outgoing Afghan President continues to denounce the United States and praise China and Iran, the Obama Administration has been pressuring Afghanis to allow it to keep roughly 10,000 troops in the country with the obvious commitment to spend billions and billions more on the war. The agreement has now bee signed. This is being heralded as a long-awaited success for the Administration – a curious achievement for those who want us out of the country and money spent on badly needed domestic programs of education, science, and infrastructure.
Iraqi pilots are rechecking their coordinate calculations after they mistakenly dropped food, water and ammunition to Islamic State militants rather than besieged Iraqi forces fighting the militants. It is the latest blunder by a military that, despite billions and billions in U.S. training and equipment, continues to face regular desertions and defeats in the field.
Over international protests, according to some new sites, Iran has already executed Rayhaneh Jabbari, 26. However, Fox News is reporting that the execution has been delayed. Jabbari claimed that a former Iranian Intelligence Ministry employee tried to rape her and that she stabbed in him the shoulder to escape. Despite the fact that a drink given to her was found to contain a date rape drug, the Iranian officials still wanted her hanged and they have now carried out their intent. As she was being led away to be hanged, a guard showed mercy and gave her his phone to type a final message to her mother. Her reported message below is poignant and tragic as a final goodbye to her mother. [Update: there are both reports that the execution has occurred and that the execution has been delayed. Amnesty is reporting that the execution is “imminent.”]
Continue reading ““Goodbye, Dear Mum”: Rayhaneh Jabbari Prepares For Execution (Updated)”
Various media outlets are reporting the latest outrage from Sharia courts. Iranian authorities have reportedly executed Mohsen Amir-Aslani, 37, for allegedly “insulting” the prophet Jonah and accused him of committing adultery. For that exercise of free speech and freedom of religion, a Sharia court had him hanged.
Continue reading “Iran Executes Man For “Innovations” On Religion And Insulting Job”
It appears that the Uber Taxi driver discussed today is not the only person who is reportedly using the “she asked for it” defense to sexual assault. The Pennsylvania attorney general’s office is blaming a former state prison clerk for her own rape in litigation against the prison. The 24-year-old typist was working at the state prison at Rockview in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania in 2013 when she was choked unconscious and raped for 27 minutes by Omar Best, an image convicted three times previously of sex-related crimes. Worse yet, Best had been transferred from a different state prison for assaulting a female assistant but the prison still allowed him unsupervised visits with female employees.
Continue reading “The Best Defense? Pennsylvania Blames Prison Employee For Her Own Rape By Inmate”