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HBO recently broadcast a dramatization of the April 26, 1986, Chernobyl accident — at the time, the highest severity nuclear accident in history — a 7 on the International Event Scale. Some 30 people died as a direct result of the accident, thousands more died or are dying as a result of Acute Radiation Syndrome and large swaths of the Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia were contaminated by radioactive fallout. According to the director of the Chernobyl Plant, the immediate area around Chernobyl will be uninhabitable for “at least...
The feigned outrage over the Clinton Foundation by Republican operatives is the height of hypocrisy, but most people won’t realize this. “Never heard of it.” This was a response I got all too often as I went door-to-door as a volunteer collecting signatures for I-735, a grassroots movement to make Washington the 18th state to ask Congress to overturn Citizens United. It was disheartening to learn that so many people knew so little about something so important. The Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in the 2010 Citizens United...
I stepped out the front door of our new home to get some groceries from the car. We’d just moved in and I was stocking up. A young boy hurried over from across the street and said, “Welcome to the neighborhood!” “Well, thank you,” I said, surprised by this kid’s enthusiastic welcome. “How do you like it here?” he asked. He was a slender kid, with black hair, dark eyes, and an infectious smile. “We just got here,” I said, shrugging my shoulders. “It’s a nice neighborhood,” he said, and turning to look across the street sa...
The last time I checked you can still buy your POM Wonderful at our local supermarkets. This despite the fact that a judge issued a “cease and desist,” ordering POM to stop claiming its beverage benefits everything from your brain to your prostate (see www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/pom-not-so-wonderful/). Distributors aren’t going to remove the stuff just because its maker’s lied, not as long as people keep buying it, and they do. POM’s 8-ounce bottle is now the fastest selling, single-serve premium refrigerated juice. Ho...
Don Brunell’s ‘Guest Commentary’ on fossil fuels happened to appear in the Cheney Free Press on my son’s birthday, March 26, 2015. The chronological milestone — he turned 50 — made me consider just how irresponsible Mr. Brunell’s commentary was. My son, as old as he is, will still live to see the day when the folly of man’s stubborn refusal to address climate change will have dire consequences effecting everything from agriculture to zoology. Why would Mr. Brunell, who at last count, had 14 grandchildren, promote fossil...
Since the beginning of this year, more than 50,000 children, mostly teens, but others as young as nine or 10, some younger, have swarmed across America’s southern border. Officials expect the number to exceed 70,000 by yearend. They are escaping from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico; countries in turmoil, where drug lords terrorize neighborhoods and whole regions, bribe officials, force kids into gangs, and brutalize and kill anyone who opposes them. The kids are escaping from terror, abuse, abject poverty and h...
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee recently signed an executive order creating a task force to design a “carbon emission limits and market mechanisms program” that establishes a cap on emissions, and includes “measures to help offset any cost impacts to consumers and workers, protect low-income households and assist energy intensive, trade-exposed businesses in their transition from carbon-based fuels.” Inslee’s “emissions limits and markets” program is, like a rose by any other name, a cap and trade program. The Western Clima...
