Saturday, March 19th, 2011
, - San Francisco Chronicle
Stephan: At least one judge sees the scam run by Governor Walker and his legislative colleagues for what it was. Only successful recalls of Republican legislators is going to change this equation.
A Wisconsin state judge temporarily blocked a law that would strip government employee unions of most of their collective-bargaining power.
Circuit Court Judge Maryann Sumi today granted a temporary restraining order blocking publication of the measure signed into law by Governor Scott Walker on March 11, after a hearing in the state’s capital city, Madison. Publication gives the law full force and effect.
‘The legislature and the governor, not a single Dane County Circuit Court judge, are responsible for the enactment of laws,’ Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen said in an e- mailed statement. He said the state plans to appeal Sumi’s order.
The legislation championed by Walker, a first-term Republican, requires annual recertification votes for union representation and makes voluntary the payment of union dues. It exempts firefighters and police officers.
Organized labor and Democrats called the bill an attack on workers. Opposition sparked almost four weeks of mass protests at the Capitol.
Dane County District Attorney Ismael R. Ozanne, acting on four filed complaints — three by elected officials and one by a union leader — asked the court to bar publication. In addition to being the state capital, Madison is the Dane County seat.
Open-Meeting Law
Ozanne accused four Republican lawmakers of violating […]
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Saturday, March 19th, 2011
, - Environmental Research Web
Stephan: The rise in the level of the sea is going to be the reason we see a migration away from the coast, one of the three big internal migrations that will be occurring in the U.S.
The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are losing mass at an accelerating pace, according to a new study. The findings of the study – the longest to date of changes in polar ice sheet mass – suggest these ice sheets are overtaking ice loss from Earth’s mountain glaciers and ice caps to become the dominant contributor to global sea level rise, much sooner than model forecasts have predicted. The results of the study will be published this month in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.
If current ice sheet melting rates continue for the next four decades, their cumulative loss could raise sea level by 15 centimeters (5.9 inches) by 2050. When this is added to the predicted sea level contribution of 8 centimeters (3.1 inches) from glacial ice caps and 9 centimeters (3.5 inches) from ocean thermal expansion, total sea level rise could reach 32 centimeters (12.6 inches). While this provides one indication of the potential contribution ice sheets could make to sea level in the coming century, the authors caution that considerable uncertainties remain in estimating future ice loss acceleration.
The nearly 20-year study reveals that in 2006, a year in which comparable results for mass […]
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Saturday, March 19th, 2011
MARK CLAYTON, Staff Writer - The Christian Science Monitor
Stephan: American nuclear power plants are now nearing the end of their planned life cycle, some are half a century in age. It is hardly surprising they have problems, nor is it surprising that corporate corner cutting, sloppy oversight, and general human stupidity are the source of many near crises.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission failed to resolve known safety problems, leading to 14 ‘near-misses’ in US nuclear power plants in 2009 and 2010, according to a new report from a nuclear watchdog group.
Nuclear plants in the United States last year experienced at least 14 ‘near misses,’ serious failures in which safety was jeopardized, at least in part, due to lapses in oversight and enforcement by US nuclear safety regulators, says a new report.
While none of the safety problems harmed plant employees or the public, they occurred with alarming frequency – more than once a month – which is high for a mature industry, said the study of nuclear plant safety performance in 20103 by the Union of Concerned Scientists, a Washington-based nuclear watchdog group.
The report, the first in what the UCS expects will become an annual study, details both successes and failures by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which it calls ‘the cop on the beat.’ Charged with overseeing America’s fleet of 104 nuclear reactors, the NRC made some ‘outstanding catches,’ but was also inconsistent in its oversight, seeming at times to nod off when most needed.
‘The chances of a disaster at a nuclear plant are low,’ the report states. […]
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Tuesday, March 15th, 2011
Stephan: I am in rural France working on a remote viewing archaeology project and unable to get online except by phone. There will be no SR until thé 19th when I am able to get online.
-- Stephan
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WARREN P. STROBEL, - McClatchy Newspapers
Stephan: Telling the truth when you are a spokesman for the American government is a career ender.
WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s chief spokesman abruptly resigned Sunday, three days after he publicly criticized the treatment in confinement of WikiLeaks suspect Army Pfc. Bradley Manning as ‘counterproductive and stupid.’
In a statement, P.J. Crowley said his remarks about Manning’s treatment, made at an appearance Thursday in Cambridge, Mass., were meant to highlight the impact of actions by U.S. security agencies ‘on our global standing and leadership.’
Lawyers for Manning, who is charged with unauthorized sharing of classified information, allege that he has been mistreated, including being forced to sleep naked, while in confinement at a Marine Corps base in Quantico, Va.
A Pentagon spokesman has said that Manning’s conditions of confinement are in compliance with U.S. laws, and suggested that officials are concerned that Manning might try to hurt himself.
At a press conference Friday, President Barack Obama was asked about Crowley’s remarks and offered the spokesman no backing, saying that the Pentagon had assured him that the conditions of Manning’s confinement were appropriate. ‘I can’t go into details about some of their concerns, but some of this has to do with Private Manning’s safety as well,’ Obama said, without elaborating.
In a statement, Clinton said she had accepted Crowley’s […]
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