Ohio House Bill 381: This bill introduced in October is new attempt to bail out Ohio’s two nuclear power plants, Davis-Besse and Perry on Lake Erie. Proponents say it has more support than the previous incarnation, HB 178 introduced earlier this year, since it asks for a smaller subsidy. Both bills have an entirely fictitious premise, which they call ZEN, or zero emissions nuclear. Nuclear power has zero emissions? Enormous amounts of carbon dioxide are produced in the front and back ends of nuclear power. While the nuclear chain reaction itself does not release greenhouse gases, it produces the deadliest substance on earth – radioactive waste. HB 381 would be paid for by increasing ratepayer electric bills. Call your Ohio House Member and tell her/him NO to HB 381.  

In these dark days of “fake news” and “alternative facts,” it’s hard to trust any politicians. How can we tell apart the ones who spout bald-faced lies from those who actually tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Fortunately, we now have a science-based tool for telling which politicians are comfortable committing to the truth, and which are not, to help guide our votes in the Columbus City Council and Board of Education elections.

The swampish saga would be hard to invent. In early October, Puerto Rico’s Energy Power Authority awarded a $300 million tax-funded contract to reconstruct the island’s hurricane devastated power grid to a two-person, two-year-old firm based in the small Montana hometown of Trump Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. The company is financially backed by a major donor to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

About eighty percent of Puerto Rico is still without power. Many hospitals are still dark. Local citizens needing medical treatments such as surgeries or dialysis have been forced to flee to places where electric power is available.

http://davidswanson.org/u-s-empire-not-fade-away/

I wanna tell you how it’s gonna be.

But I really cannot. Prediction is just vastly more difficult than action, which makes it even odder that so much of the former goes on, and so little of the latter.

I just read In The Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power by Alfred McCoy. It’s one of the better books I’ve read in a long time on the history and current state of U.S. militarism. It’s excellent on the truly ridiculous (my word, not the book’s) chess analogy that has driven imperialist thinking, on the outcomes of backing dictators as puppets, and on the abuses of secret agencies — including their role in the drug trade in places like Nicaragua and Afghanistan.

A dozen or so activists braved the cold and marched from the Wexner Center at 15th and High Street to the opening of the OSU football stadium on Saturday, October 28 to “Take a knee to stand with Kaepernick.”

The reason for the rally was “On October 16, 2017 Shelley Meyer made it very clear that she does not support Colin Kaepernick and his fight against police brutality towards POC. For those who don't know, Shelley is OSU football coach Urban Meyer's wife. When 10TV news posted a tweet about Kaepernick filing grievances against the NFL, she responded "What-ever. He made his choices."It is absolutely unacceptable for the wife of a football coach to condemn the actions of the NFL and "take a knee." We must stand (better yet kneel) in solidarity with Kaepernick where it needs done the most. The Shoe. The Meyer's need to know that we do not accept Shelley and her negative reaction to Kaepernick, and we certainly do not accept her half hearted apology she posted later.”