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Thai government promotes Red Shirt leader & pro-Mugabe supporter

BANGKOK, Thailand -- A Thai businesswoman, who is banned by the U.S. Treasury Department from doing business with Americans because she allegedly facilitated financial transactions for Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's wife, has been appointed as the prime minister's office minister.

Nalinee "Joy" Taveesin was among 10 new people brought in to become ministers by Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra on January 18 as part of a cabinet shakeup.

They include the first Red Shirt protest leader to win a cabinet post, and a new defence minister.

The shuffle transferred six ministers within the cabinet.

King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who is a constitutional monarch, signed a royal command on January 18.

It was unclear if the prime minister was aware of the decision on November 25, 2008 by the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) which designated Ms. Nalinee among several others for helping Mr. Mugabe's regime.

Congressional Candidate Mary Jo Kilroy defends record after ‘mic check’ from Occupy Columbus

Congressional Candidate Mary Jo Kilroy defends record after ‘mic check’ from Occupy Columbus One of the four Democrats vying for the new U.S. House seat created by Republican redistricting, Kilroy last week joined a gathering of about 70 people as they marked in protest the second anniversary of the US Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling. As she spoke, several activists with Occupy Columbus used the ‘People’s Mic’ to question her populist bonafides.

Cruz Bonlarron read from a crumpled piece of paper and several others with him repeated what he said, one phrase after the other. This was the total message of their repeat-backs; some parts of it were hard to discern even for someone standing nearby, so later Banlarron read it again for me :

Press Statement by Kevin Kamps, Radioactive Waste Specialist at Beyond Nuclear, on the publication of the final report by the U.S. Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future

“Today the U.S. Department of Energy’s Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future unveiled the result of its two-year-long investigation into what to do with the accumulated radioactive waste at this country’s atomic reactors. By this year’s end, that waste will constitute a mountain 70 years high, with the first cupful generated on December 2, 1942 at Enrico Fermi’s Manhattan Project lab at the University of Chicago, when scientists first created a self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction.

There remains no viable solution for either the management or certainly the ‘disposal’ of radioactive waste. Yet, the one essential recommendation that is not contained in the DOE report is to stop making any more of it. While a child would never be allowed to continue piling up toys in his or her room indefinitely, failing to tidy up the mess, the nuclear industry continues to be permitted to manufacture some of the world’s most toxic detritus without a cleanup plan.

School lunches and our economy

Editors:
The Dispatch recently highlighted, in its main front page article, the heartbreaking growth of eligibility for Ohio’s school lunch program. Due to the loss of jobs, continued economic pressure on Ohio’s working and poor families, the Dispatch article points out, a majority of Ohio’s public school students are now receiving government aid just to be able to have a decent, healthy lunch while going to school.

I would certainly think that this information would spur our legislators to immediately go into crisis mode, and begin to do everything possible to reverse this growing misery, despair and poverty. I guess that would be the case if the present legislature had, as its goal, to actually perform their jobs in a way that would help our citizens. However, that hardly appears to be so.

Roe turns 30: Columbus protests

Monday marked the 39th anniversary of Roe v Wade. While most local anti-abortion big shots were doing their annual March for Life in Washington with accompanying photo ops, Greater Columbus Right to Life held down the fort here with a 45 minute rally on the steps of the Statehouse with few photo ops.

Except for me, Channel l0 appeared to be the only local media covering the event, but there's nothing on the station's news site. With Occupy Columbus camped out on the corner of S. High and E State, I was imagining interesting possibilities, but the occupiers, unlike their Washington DC counterparts who disrupted a “youth event “held by anti-abortion moguls Brian Kemper, Patrick Mahoney , Lila Rose and friends, decided to sit this one out..

Court to Vermont: "Drop Dead"

A federal judge has told the people of Vermont that a solemn contract between them and the reactor owner Entergy need not be honored.

The fight will almost certainly now go to the US Supreme Court. At stake is not only the future of atomic power, but the legitimacy of all deals signed between corporations and the public. Chief Justice John Roberts' conservative court will soon decide whether a private corporation can sign what should be an enforceable contract with a public entity and then flat-out ignore it.

In 2003 Entergy made a deal with the state of Vermont. The Louisiana-based nuke speculator said that if it could buy and operate the decrepit Vermont Yankee reactor under certain terms and conditions, the company would then agree to shut it down if the state denied it a permit to continue. The drop dead date: March 21, 2012.

In the interim, VY has been found leaking radioactive tritium and much more into the ground and the nearby Connecticut River. Under oath, in public testimony, the company had denied that the pipes that leaked even existed.

One of Yankee's cooling towers has also collapsed...just plain crumbled.

Traditional values

Constitutional Amendment to create public financing introduced by Kucinich

I recently recommened a comprehensive Constitutional amendment addressing the corruption of our elections.
The largest piece of it, largely inspired by an amendment drafted by Russell Simmons, had not been introduced in Congress . . . until now.
Congressman Dennis Kucinich has just introduced HJRes100 which proposes this Constitutional Amendment:

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Section 1. All campaigns for President and Members of the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate shall be financed entirely with public funds. No contributions shall be permitted to any candidate for Federal office from any other source, including the candidate.
Section 2. No expenditures shall be permitted in support of any candidate for Federal office, or in opposition to any candidate for Federal office, from any other source, including the candidate. Nothing in this Section shall be construed to abridge the freedom of the press.
Section 3. The Congress shall, by statute, provide limitations on the amounts and timing of the expenditures of such public funds.

Terror suspect says ammonia in his "Cool Packs" not for bombs

BANGKOK, Thailand -- An imprisoned Lebanese-Swedish terror suspect said he stockpiled medical "cool packs" which "contained ammonia" for commerical export, and is not a Hezbollah member, after being arrested for possessing 10 gallons (38 liters) of ammonium nitrate which can be used to build bombs.

"I am 100 percent not guilty in the terror crimes I am accused of," Hussein Atris, a dual Lebanese-Swedish citizen, told the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet.

"This is a conspiracy. I deal only with ordinary business operations," Mr. Atris, 47, said in Swedish, describing why he repeatedly came to Thailand during the past two years while exporting items to Lebanon, Liberia and other countries from a building he rented on the outskirts of Bangkok.

"We bought goods in Asia and exported them to other countries, including Lebanon. It was fans, photocopier paper and cool packs used to relieve pain. These bags contained ammonia," Mr. Atris said.

"Snowed in in Seattle": A plea for peace to the White House

Most people know about being "Sleepless in Seattle." Well, I am "snowed in in Seattle!" But even six inches of snow in Seattle don't keep me from becoming steamed when I read the latest news reports on the activities of the U.S. war machine:

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