Badlands Journal
Social, Economic, and Environmental Justice
The story begins with an announcement so boring that most readers wouldn’t venture below the first graph. Yet things warm up later down when the actual meaning of the announced progam comes out: it is a plan to make a plan that will serve as a means of circumventing the California Environmental Quality Act.
Los Banos grew by 42 percent between 2000 and 2010, to a population of 37,000. Over the same period bankrupt Stockton grew 22.2 percent to reach a population of 298,000.
Throughout the epoch when Great Boom that turned into the Great Bust, creating a major Economic Depression in the nation, worst of all in the northern San Joaquin Valley, city officials, staff, developers, landowners, bankers, realtors, corporate newspaper chains and chambers of commerce argued continually at the top of their collective lungs that “RESIDENTIAL GROWTH PAYS FOR ITSELF.”
"Janet N Is Comin' To Town"
You better watch out
You better not think
You better not shout
I'm telling you why
Janet N is coming to town
Janet N is coming to town
Janet N is coming to town
She's making a list,
Checking it twice;
Gonna find out who's naughty or nice.
Janet N is coming to town
Janet N is coming to town
Janet N is coming to town
She sees you when you're sleeping
She knows when you're awake
She knows if you've been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake
A letter written by environmental opponents listed below of the latest draft of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan to representatives of NOAA Fisheries Service, Department of Interior Fisheries, US Environmental Protection Agency, US Fish & Wildlife Service. -- blj
What follows is a small gathering of expressions from across the Great Water of contempt for the United States. It is interesting to note how opinion of the US appears to have deteriorated among the tiny remaining corps of unembedded, English--writing foreign correspondents today. Perhaps it is merely an illusion in our own foggy minds, but it seemed to us that during the “run-yup” to the invasion of Iraq there was dismay and anger. Once the slaughterhouse got going full blast the tone turned to disgust and despair.
10-9-13
The United States Energy Information Agency estimates that there are 137 trillion cubic feet of “technically recoverable” gas in France, equivalent to decades worth of national consumption. Without significant exploration effort, though, those numbers are just guesswork, Mr. Schilansky said. -- David Jolly, New York Times, Oct. 11, 2013
Let’s tell the richest farmers in the poorest states to keep their hands off federal farm subsidies and crop insurance.
“Nothingness” has become a big topic again. Nihil is back, but only after 35 years of nimium (too much). Much, much too much.
Most people you talk to around Merced County--except students and faculty of UC Merced, of course--have a story or two about Foster Farms chicken plants. These stories are never good. In fact, they are a mordant local art form. But that's the production side. Here is a story from the consumer side that deserves a place among the best Foster Farms tales.-- blj
Bognar said she called a customer service hotline and a Foster Farms employee laughed at her -- Brandon Lowrey, NBCLA, Oct. 15, 2013
10-15-13
Three stories this week stuck in the editorial craw here at Badlands.
9-10-13
The Guardian (UK)
Food crisis fears prompt UN wake-up call to world leaders
By Claire Provost in Geneva This article was originally published by The Guardian on September 18, 2013
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2013/sep/18/food-crisis-un-governments
The latest on Japan's horrific history with nuclear energy.
10-24-13
Common Dreams
Fuel Removal From Fukushima's Reactor 4 Threatens 'Apocalyptic' Scenario
In November, TEPCO set to begin to remove fuel rods whose radiation matches the fallout of 14,000 Hiroshima bombs
- Andrea Germanos, staff writer
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/10/24-3
This article ought to appear in every anthology of the finest environmental writing in English. -- blj
10-25/27-13
COUNTERPUNCH.COM
Obama's War on Wolves and the Endangered Species Act
Sacrificial Wolves
by JEFFREY ST. CLAIR