variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease — the human form of mad cow disease

Portsmouth woman’s death under investigation

By VERONICA GORLEY CHUFO | 247-4741

April 11, 2008

  

 

RICHMOND - The illness and Wednesday death of a Portsmouth woman spurred a Virginia Department of Health investigation Thursday.

The woman suffered from encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease. Her illness has been linked in news reports to variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease — the human form of mad cow disease.

It’s a very rare condition related to the consumption of beef infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy. It’s always fatal, the health department said in a news release.

 

More:

http://urlet.com/implication.stems

 

Mike Arnold: Simple truth about freight, SMART

 

Staff Report
Article Launched: 04/07/2008 12:03:23 AM PDT
Mike Arnold
SONOMA-MARIN Area Rail Transit’s draft supplemental environmental impact report identifies significant impacts associated with the combined operations of freight and passenger trains in Marin and Sonoma counties.

These impacts, as noted in quotes from the document, include:

- Freight trains will operate at night. According to the supplemental report, nighttime operations will occur because “the freight operator may nevertheless opt to run freight trains at night for independent operational needs.” If there are 16 freight trains per day, as the report says may occur, a much larger number of freight trains would be forced into nighttime operation and disturb sleeping residents.

- If the North Coast Railroad Authority succeeds in implementing its strategic plan, there is a significant increase in cancer risk, associated with diesel fumes, for residents living near the track. The report states, “the localized concentrations along tracks with up to 16 pass-bys per day É could result in health risks of more than 10 excess cancer cases per million for locations near the tracks.”

- An increase in noise levels near the track is significant and unavoidable. “Future combined passenger and freight operations would result in a permanent increase in ambient noise levels in some segments for sensitive receptors within 50 feet of the tracks.”

- Long trains will cause delays at the 61 at-grade crossings in Sonoma County and the seven in Novato. The NCRA proposal specifies 60-car trains. However, if the NCRA’s freight operator is successful in obtaining access to Island Mountain Quarry in Trinity County or Eureka builds the proposed container port, the number of long trains could be far larger.

More:

http://urlet.com/long.opposer

2,000 more with stipulations at Reggae Rising

Mary Anderson, Redwood Times

Article Launched: 04/09/2008 11:32:24 AM PDT

 

 

People Productions was granted an increase in attendance of 2,000 by the Humboldt County Planning Commission at its April 3 meeting in Eureka. Commissioners present at this meeting were Bruce Emad, Tom Herman, Mary Gearheart, Jeffrey Smith, Sef Murguia, Scott Kelly, and Richard Hansis. Smith chaired the meeting.Unlike previous commission hearings, this one took place before a nearly empty chamber. The cause for the low attendance of interested parties may have been due to questions raised on the commission’s agenda as to whether or not the commissioners would get to the item because there were so many items to be heard, but when the meeting commenced, all the other items were either postponed or dealt with quickly, and the Reggae hearing began much earlier than anyone had expected.

 

More:

http://www.redwoodtimes.com/local/ci_8864895

Flight Cancellations and the FAA “Safety Inspections”

 

 

I call B.S. on this story.  I think that air travel (especially business air travel) has CRATERED and the airlines can’t afford to fly these routes with near empty planes.  I think the Federal Government is lying to you about how bad things really are.  This is a cover-up.

Universal Living Wage Campaign

Universal Living Wage

This year, 3.5 million people will experience homelessness. The federal government says 42% of them are working at some point during the week. Clearly, the work ethic is there, but the wage to afford basic housing is not. These folks come from our 10.1 million minimum wage workers. Minimum wage jobs, the ones that can’t be outsourced, were once stepping stones. Now they are the jobs raising whole families when coupled with subsidies.

The antithesis of being housed is homelessness. The proposal, through a ten year plan, is to fix the Federal Minimum Wage by indexing it to the local cost of housing throughout the United States.

By using existing government guidelines: 1) work 40 hours in a week, 2) spend no more than 30% of one’s income on housing, and 3) using the HUD section 8 rental calculations, we ensure that anyone working 40 hours in a week will be able to afford basic rental housing, food, clothing, utilities, and access to health care.

US military pay practices, using geographic considerations, mirror this approach.

 

Universal Living Wage Campaign:

http://www.universallivingwage.com/

Union files five ballot initiatives - Colorado

Union files five ballot initiatives

Denver Business Journal - by Bob Mook The United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 7 has proposed five ballot initiatives aimed at strengthening workers’ rights.

The measures are in response to the Colorado Association of Commerce and Industry’s endorsement of an anti-union “right-to-work” initiative.

One measure would require state employers to give cost-of-living increases that reflect the consumer price index.

The union also supports a proposal that would require companies with 20 or more workers to offer health insurance. Another initiative would prohibit Colorado companies that rely on overseas labor from receiving tax credits.

Yet another proposal would increase assessments of commercial property to generate more revenue for state health care and education programs.

The union also favors a proposal that would create more stringent regulations for safe workplaces.

 

More:

http://urlet.com/simulation.repletion

 

United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW):

http://www.ufcw.org/about_ufcw/who_we_are/

Justice through Jostle

Another view from Humboldt. PL Bankruptcy and Andy Beal

Well, I guess it’s all public now that Andy Beal, under the auspices of the Scotia-Redwood Foundation, made a $603 million dollar offer to encourage the note holders to push for an auction in the ongoing saga of PL’s Bankruptcy hearings.
Andy Beal, ahem, as in the guy that started Beal Bank during the S&L scandal, [...]

Read Full Post »

http://jostle.wordpress.com/2008/04/

Conservation Groups Hope to Reform 1872 Mining Law

From onemuleteam:

Conservation Groups Hope to Reform 1872 Mining Law

April 10, 2008 by onemuleteam

The recent spike in the price of minerals is leading to a resurgence in interest in mining public lands in the west.  Anglers and hunters are concerned that increased mining could lead to widepread environmental degradation of the areas that they love and for good reason; more than 50% of America’s blue ribbon trout waters and 80% of critical habitat for elk is located on public land. 

A coalition of four hundred conservation organizations have formed Sportsmen United for Sensible Mining (and apparently sexist language in organization titles but I digress).  This group, spearheaded by Trout Unlimited, the National Wildlife Federation and the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership is leading an effort to reform the archaic 1872 Hardrock Mining Act.  The groups goals include:

• End mining’s priority status on public land
• Recover a fair royalty for all minerals, present and future taken from public lands and establish a fund for fish and wildlife improvement projects associated with past mining
• Ensure that resource professionals have full discretion in the planning and permitting process to preserve public lands where high value fish, water and wildlife values exist
• Provide “Good Samaritan” reclamation incentives and liability relief
• Prohibit the sale of public lands under this law

Much more:

http://urlet.com/octillion.examples

Pacific Lumber Timber Plan Threatens State Park

 

Pacific Lumber is rushing to clearcut an ancient redwood forest right next to Humboldt Redwoods State Park. Please take a moment to write to the California
Department of Forestry (CalFIRE) TODAY!

In a slick move to liquidate old Redwoods along the South Fork of the Eel River, Pacific Lumber is moving quickly to get approval for a huge Timber Harvest
Plan (THP) immediately adjacent to Humboldt Redwoods State Park. The Railcar THP would liquidate remnant forests along the park border, just above the
Avenue of the Giants. This area, encompassing the upper portion of the Bridge Creek watershed, is a gem of North Coast biodiversity. It has been proposed
as a park addition in the proposal that The Nature Conservancy and Save-the-Redwoods League have put forward to resolve the Pacific Lumber bankruptcy.

For a sample comment letter and more information on what you can do- follow this link below-

http://www.wildcalifornia.org/actions/number-67

For the wild- Noel Soucy
THP Monitor
Industrial Forestlands Program
Environmental Protection Information Center
P.O. Box 397
Garberville, CA 95542
(707) 822-7711 -Arcata EPIC office