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It is absolutely not true that Fukushima problems do not exist elsewhere. Hydrogen buildup and containment break up is possible in many other reactors too and is not addressed properly.

Three Miles Island accident has released unknown amount of radioactivity to atmosphere. Containment was breached to some extent and Three Mile Island operators ordered the dumping of radioactive water into the Susquehanna River
Randall Thompson, a health physics technician employed to monitor radioactive emissions at TMI after the accident, said "I think the numbers on the NRC's website are off by a factor of 100 to 1,000"
http://www.southernstudies.org...

You may manage risks, but you can't eliminate them if they exist by design. From business perspective, best risk management is to form LLC, skip on one per 1000 year risks as they are hard to manage anyway, and bankrupt LLC when it really happens. And you can always lobby legislators to limit your liability for "greater good".

Maybe I used the wrong wording.....hard is relative of course, but here is one example. You can see that the goals of the bill are to increase the influence of small donations.

In other words, he's attacking the problem, not by prohibiting rich people from being involved, but by strengthening the power of individuals.

And that produce will have more minerals and grow bug free. Double win!

Yup. They use stuff like Azomite and Elomite (Rock Dusts) as soil amendments.

I used it for the 1st time last year and my garden's yeilds were amazing (I harvested double the plum tomatoes from the less plants - 132lbs in 2014/15 plants vs. 66lbs in 2013/18 plants

And that produce will have more minerals and grow bug free. Double win!

Why did you skip over the incarceration rates? Is it because they were detrimental to your argument?

My parents raised me to get above the street kid I was turning into, they taught me the value of learning and not being a tool. That was the only thing that saved me.

And so the kids who have drug addicts or dead parents or learning disabilites, just fuck'em, huh?

In the end, ALL OF YOUR PROBLEMS ARE YOUR FAULT

At some point, when you multiply and multiply hardships for people, the chance of success becomes fairly close to zero. This isn't the result of some secret white cabal conspiring to put black people, or more accurately, poor people down, but it is a result of the institutional structures which dominate their lives.

When these people fail, it shouldn't surprise anyone. But when a young man watches his parents wither under drug addiction, because if they try to get help they are often arrested, then watches a few of his friends die, watches some of them get used up by the same drugs, tries to get job after job but is denied constantly because of his skin color, spends hours a day on the bus because he can't afford a car, it leads to a certain atmosphere of desperation that can happen to anyone, regardless of how well they were brought up.

People do not choose to be failures. They embrace the culture of failure only after they have given up. I guarantee if you gave any one of those young kids the same kind of environment of support their peers experience miles down the road, they would be just as successful. But instead of investing in poor communities, they are ignored, and then jailed after we criminalize their lifestyle.

Despite studies confirming that illicit drug use by African Americans is no greater than that of whites, black offenders are less likely to be offered a chance to plea bargain and more likely to fall under the federal or state mandatory minimum sentencing law. The escalation in black incarceration is the single major reason for the massive bulge in the number of inmates in federal prisons. The number has jumped four-fold since the late 1980s. More than half of them are there for drug crimes or other petty offenses...

The law has wreaked havoc beyond the prison system. It has debilitated many black communities and families. Women convicted of felony drug offenses are barred for life from receiving welfare benefits. This puts thousands of women and their children at dire social risk and increases the likelihood that they will commit more crimes. The high black imprisonment rate also drastically increases health risks and costs in black communities, since many prisoners are released with chronic medical afflictions, particularly HIV and AIDS.

http://www.southernstudies.org/2009/10/new-crack-cocaine-bill-leaves-thousands-behind-bars.html

You claim not to be a "randroid", but you seem to fully believe in the libertarian value of indifference to suffering and injustice.

Although the first known victims of this flu strain were reported from Mexico (City), some genetic analysis actually traced the origin to North Carolina: http://www.southernstudies.org/2009/05/swine-flu-genes-traced-to-north-carolina-hog-farm.html

http://www.southernstudies.org/2008/12/election-2008-minority-and-youth-voting-surged-in-the-2008-election-according-to-a-new-project-vote.html

According to this, afro-american turnout was up 21% and Latino was up 16%... But there's no way to know how many of those new voters were voting simply because it wasn't for a white guy.

It also says that youth turnout was up 9% as well.

As for it being a 'milestone', it definitely is. Yes, MLK would want people to vote for the right reasons, but that doesn't make this any less important.

Let's make this clear: For the first time in history, the President isn't an old white man.

Assuming Obama doesn't screw up royally (and after Bush, how could he?) then people will no longer fear this change. A whole generation is going to grow up with the idea that you can be a minority and be President, instead of the idea that was pounded into our heads: It just can't happen.

Honestly, when it came down to 'black man for president or white woman for vice president' I cheered. I'm happy with either one of those changes setting a precedent. I think what we got was not only the better change, but the better President of the 2 choices.

So this is not only a major milestone, but it's a bigger milestone than I've seen the media making it.

I did hear one report of a R vote flipping to D. It seems to have been a hoax.

And here and here are links to several stories of votes switching from D to R.

If you think that FEMA is competent, then you are incompetent.

TWO YEARS AFTER KATRINA

A representative from the Federal Emergency Management Agency confirmed yesterday that the ice being held at AmeriCold Logistics on Rogers Street and 22 other facilities like it nationwide is being disposed of by melting it. The total cost of storing that ice since Katrina has been $12.5 million.

http://www.newburyportnews.com/punews/local_story_194224242.html

TOXIC AND EXPLOSIVE TRAILERS

The federal government has known there were toxic levels of formaldehyde in temporary trailers provided to people displaced by Hurricane Katrina at least as far back as April 2006.

...

Last month, KNOE-TV in Monroe, La. investigated further, documenting a design flaw in FEMA's mobile homes that could lead to a buildup of potentially toxic mold levels. It also found that FEMA had been selling the flawed homes to the public in spite of the test results. One science building expert who examined the inside walls of two FEMA homes in Ouachita Parish, La. found one type of mold spore at up to 30,000 times the levels found outside, indicating a wall exposed to excessive moisture levels.

...

An investigative report in New Orleans' latest Gambit Weekly newspaper found that trailer occupants face a high risk of injury or death due to fires and explosions that occur when gas fumes from propane burners build up inside the units and are accidentally ignited. The paper found that at least five Louisianans have been killed and nine injured by such incidents since January 2006. While trailer occupants are to blame for some of the fires, other incidents were caused by improper installation and maintenance by FEMA contractors

http://southernstudies.org/facingsouth/2007/12/gulf-watch-trailer-troubles-mount-as.asp

When you talk about how the people in New Orleans are "stupid", what you are really saying ist that they are black. So here's a question for you: do you prefer to wear you Klan robe loose, or do you like a tighter more sporty fit?

...high rates of obesity (soul food), diabetes (sweet tea), and heart disease....

Having just moved from there, to the Bay Area, Ca....
Yes, Ga is unhealthy. Alot of the blame can also be put on the government of the state, which continues to push for more and wider highways (as if 16 lanes isnt enough), continue to allow and support the majority of power plants running on fossil fuels, mainly coal and including 3 of the dirtiest in the US, with two in the top 3 of that list. This, combined with naturally high humidity, ultra high pollen counts and high temperatures makes the air quality suck, putting Atlanta in 4th for most challenging place to live with asthma and consistently in the Top Ten smoggiest cities. This keeps people inside. Going anywhere basically means driving there as sprawl and the resulting proliferation of more roads without increased mass transit or even bike lanes(again, gvmt sponsored), reckless drivers in large vehicles thanks to (previously, and relatively) cheap gas and the whole "southern/redneck" bit that leans towards F250s with 12"lift on mud tires, and the horrid air make it difficult to impossible to walk or bike anywhere (outside of Down/Mid Town Atl) for fear of your life. So people tend to sit on their fat asses in their offices all day and eat at one of about 20 McDonads or Waffle Houses in the 2mi radius of their home (after driving there of course)... not that I miss having a 24h eatery nearby (I miss my WaHo and Marietta Diner!). Add to all that that NASCAR is a "Sport" in Ga, and as such, "exercising" consists of sitting in bleachers (or on the sofa), smoking, drinking budweiser and eating chilli cheese dogs while watching cars go in circles.

Alot of this could be fixed by improving mass-transit, curbing Sprawl (which is what really caused the drought) and improving Atlanta's Bikability. Generally getting people out of their cars and walking or biking places. MARTA's subway line only goes to about 3 useful places: the airport, downtown, and perimeter mall, while a majority of people live in Cobb County, which rejected having anything to do with a Marta rail line (think: "It will bring in the colored people to steal our TV's!").

Ga is way behind in most rankings of things as well: the Gov'ner has repeatedly struck down attempts to allow Sunday sales of any alcoholic beverage (outside of a restaurant), the most recent time saying it would teach "better time management," thus keeping Georgia one of 3 states still having such arcane blue laws. The state is kept in the past though laws like this, as well as the control the churches have over it and its citizens, which al

Inside A U.S. Election Vote Counting Program
Tampering with Election Machine Software

From WHO COUNTS THE VOTES?:

"Here are short profiles of the three most important voting-systems companies in the United States:

ELECTION SYSTEMS AND SOFTWARE

By far the largest vote-counting company in the United States, Election Systems and Software (ES&S) of Omaha, Neb., was founded in 1980 by brothers Todd and Bob Urosevich. According to internet journalist Bev Harris of Talion.com, the company, originally known as American Information Systems, was controlled in the 1980s by the hard-right, fundamentalist-leaning Ahmanson family of California, heirs to the Home Savings of America fortune. In the nineties, the company could boast future U.S. Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) as its chairman; Hagel still owns stock in the McCarthy Group, which currently has a stake in ES&S. Since ES&S enjoys an exclusive contract with the state of Nebraska and counts 80 percent of the state's votes (the rest are hand-counted), Hagel is effectively part owner of the firm responsible for counting his own votes.

ES&S has been involved in voting-related scandals across the country, particularly in the South. In April 2002, Arkansas secretary of state Bill McCuen pleaded guilty to taking bribes and kickbacks in voting-machine scandals, part of which involved Business Records Corp. (BRC), now merged into ES&S. A BRC executive, Tom Eschberger, accepted immunity from prosecution in return for cooperating in the investigation, and has since become a Vice President of ES&S.

According to The Tallahassee Democrat, Sandra Mortham, Florida's top election official from 1995 to 1999, lobbies for both ES&S and the Florida Association of Counties, which endorsed ES&S in return for a commission. Mortham herself received commissions for ES&S touch-screen machines purchased by Florida counties (see "The Re-Election of Jim Crow," Southern Exposure Election 2002 Special Edition).

In another revolving-door scandal, the state of California has begun an investigation into Louis Dedier, the state's director of voting systems. Dedier accepted a job with ES&S, then made recommendations without disclosing the potential conflict of interest.

Breakdowns and other problems have plagued ES&S machines since at least the late 1990s. When the company's new ballot-reading machines malfunctioned in Hawaii in 1998, Tom Eschberger admitted there were difficulties, but protested to the Honolulu Star Bulletin that "in all fairness, there were 7,000 machines in Venezuela and 500 machines in Dallas that did not have problems." However, during that same election season, the Dallas devices initially failed to count 41,000 votes. And two years later, massive breakdowns and technical difficulties with ES&S systems rocked the Venezuelan national elections, causing the vote to be suspended. Pres. Hugo Chavez and Venezuelan election officials accused the company of "trying to destabilize the country's electoral process," while protesters chanted "Gringos go home!" at ES&S technicians.

ES&S-related problems continued in 2002, as Bev Harris has documented:

In the primaries, Union County, Florida, used ES&S machines for the first time. According to The Bradenton Herald, under old methods of hand counting, election workers usually finished tallying the county's votes by the end of the day. This time, when a programming error corrupted the machine count, officials had to resort to the old method. Altogether the process took more than twice as long as manual counting.

During early voting in Dallas County, Texas, voters complained that ES&S touch-screen devices were recording Democratic votes as votes for Republicans. Similar problems were reported in Florida.

Twenty percent of ES&S machines in Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana, malfunctioned on election day. According to the Baton Rouge Advocate, the state committee that chose ES&S ignored the wishes of local officials