Stephan: If you read me regularly you know I have been warning about the ongoing crisis of nuclear waste since SR began. Hyman Rickover, the father of the American Navy's nuclear-powered ships and submarines, warned me about this driving back from Andrews Air Force base, and testified to Congress warning them about civilian nuclear power.
The defunct San Onofre nuclear power plant near San Clemente, California. Credit: Lenny Ignelzi/AP
More than 2 million visitors flock each year to California’s San Onofre state beach, a dreamy slice of coastline just north of San Diego. The beach is popular with surfers, lies across one of the largest Marine Corps bases in the Unites States and has a 10,000-year-old sacred Native American site nearby. It even landed a shout-out in the Beach Boys’ 1963 classic Surfin’ USA.
But for all the good vibes and stellar sunsets, beneath the surface hides a potential threat: 3.6m lb of nuclear waste from a group of nuclear reactors shut down nearly a decade ago. Decades of political gridlock have left it indefinitely stranded, susceptible to threats including corrosion, earthquakes and sea level rise.
The San Onofre reactors are among dozens across the United States phasing out, but experts say they best represent the uncertain future of nuclear energy.
“It’s a combination of failures, really,” said Gregory Jaczko, who chaired the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the top federal enforcer,between 2009 and 2012, of the situation at San […]
Stephan: Here is an update on a story I have been following for the last six years, White supremacists, and neo-nazis personnel in the armed services. It is clear to me that we are not on top of this issue, but it is clear that this is an issue.
The U.S. Department of Defense said it was “a wake-up call” when current and former members of the American military took part in storming the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., on January 6th. Since then, the military has increased efforts to identify and fight “extremism” in the armed forces. A “voluntary, confidential online survey” from Military Times last year found that “about one-third of all active-duty respondents said they saw signs of white supremacist or racist ideology in the ranks.” How serious is the problem?
According to Lecia Brooks—the chief of staff for the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which has been working with the military on the issue— “the overwhelming majority of military personnel have nothing to do with extremist activity.” The situation in the U.S. is much smaller-scale than what we’re seeing in Germany, Brooks says, where a government report last year found that the country’s “security services recorded more than 1,400 cases of suspected far-right extremism among soldiers, police officers and intelligence agents” over a three-year period. In March, Brooks told Congress that “the number of extremists associated with […]
Stephan: You want to know the difference between a Democrat and a Republican, based on actions not words? Read this. Erik Prince, brother of Betsy DeVos is a classic example of the scumbag exploiter.
Hillary Clinton
Erik Prince
As conditions in Afghanistan worsen daily, reports have indicated that individuals are not only eager to volunteer but are showing overwhelming support to welcome Afghan refugees. Organizations and people alike are coming together in efforts to bring Afghan asylum-seekers safely into the U.S. While some nonprofit organizations are urging people to donate miles and partnering with relocation centers to bring refugees to safety, others are advocating for donations to gather funds to fly refugees out.
But organizations aren’t the only ones flying vulnerable refugees out of Afghanistan as people surround Kabul airport. After warning of the “huge consequences” of withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan, Hillary Clinton has reportedly been chartering flights out of Afghanistan for the country’s at-risk women.
According to The New York Times, Clinton and her team have been trying to aid potential Taliban targets in leaving the country by offering seats to Afghan journalists on a flight her team arranged to help women at risk. While […]
LINDA MCQUAIG, - Common Dreams/Toronto Star (Canada)
Stephan: This article is spot on but not complete in its analysis. It is not just corporate power; it is also the utterly corrupt nature of most politicians, and yes, in the U.S. the stupidity of the voters who put people like Manchin, Gosar, Gohmert, Green, and others like them, into office. And it is never going to change until we have publicly funded elections, and taking corporate money by a politician is grounds for removing them from office.
WASHINGTON – JUNE 15: (L-R) Rex Tillerson, Chairman and CEO of ExxonMobil, John Watson, Chairman and CEO of Chevron, James Mulva, Chairman and CEO of ConocoPhillips, Marvin Odum, President of Shell Oil Company, and Lamar McKay, Chairman and President BP America, Inc. are sworn in for a hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Committee June 15, 2010 in Washington, DC. The group of oil executives were scheduled to testify on the topic of “Drilling Down On America’s Energy Future: Safety, Security And Clean Energy.” Credit: Mark Wilson/Getty
For years, it was assumed the world wouldn’t start seriously tackling climate change until we were directly confronted with its horrors—thereby revealing how truly reckless humans are.
But now that the world is engulfed in terrifying fires, heat domes, floods and droughts—yet still we don’t act!—it’s tempting to conclude humans aren’t just reckless but utterly stupid, unable to stop ourselves from going over a cliff, even as the jagged rocks below come starkly into view.
But that would be unfair to humans.
Recent surveys show most Canadians—and most of the global population as […]
Stephan: Here is some good news for those who live in a fact-based world. The evangelical nonsense about "intelligent design" and creationism has faded into the past. The bad news is that the same moronic anti-science has been transformed into anti-vaxxerism, and anti-masker hysteria.
Human Evolution Illustration Credit: Getty
The bitter culture wars over the teaching of evolution in public schools dominated headlines throughout the 2000s, in large part because of the Bush administration’s coziness with evangelicals who rejected the science on evolution. Yet flash forward to 2021 — when the acrimonious battle over science has shifted from evolution to pandemic public health — and few youngsters are apt to have any idea what “intelligent design” even means. Curiously, despite the right seizing on face mask science and immunology as new battlegrounds in the culture war, the fight over evolution is all but forgotten. In fact, for many Americans, it is completely forgotten.
Though it might seem hard to believe, Americans are more scientifically literate than ever in 2021 — so much so that creationism has become a minority opinion. And Americans are likewise been able to identify intelligent design and other forms of creationism as the inherently religious theories that they are.
We know this thanks to a new study published in the journal Public Understanding of Science, […]
