Badlands Journal
Social, Economic, and Environmental Justice
Once again and despite the severe drought, our supervisors are out of their depth. They have responded to the groundwater crisis like a concussed, four-man defensive line.
Reference: AB 1739: Groundwater Management, Dickinson, Chaptered Sept. 16, 2014. http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=2013... -- blj
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Although these "articles" appear in mainstreem media outlets. their true audience is state and federal politicians, agencies and, in general, any public source of funding and any regulator who can be bought, rented or silenced. With the passage of state legislation to begin the process of regulation of groundwater, California agribusiness flakmeisters will be concocting tales of wonder and tales of woe about agricultural forever, as usual, when some public concern slightly impedes the forward march of their commodities' careers in the market. -- blj
12-9-14
With the release last week of the heavily redacted 500-page executive summary of the US Senate Study of the Central Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation, the name John Yoo has surfaced again. Yoo, as you remember, was one of two assistant US attorneys general who drafted the infamous "torture memos," (1)which legally justified the use of "enhanced interrogation" techniques employed against al Qaeda, Taliban, Pashtuns, and assorted Iraqis and others captured in the maniacal US "war on terror" still raging on.
And New York doesn't even have the San Andreas Fault to worry about. -- blj
12-18-14
Huffington Post
New York Gov. Gets Kudos, Scorn After Fracking Ban
By MICHAEL VIRTANEN
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/18/fracking-ban-new-york_n_6349336...
California ranks fourth in the nation for sales of cattle and calves despite drought and the constant encroachment of almond orchards onto seasonal pastureland. -- blj
12-22-14
Capital Press
Abundant Calif. rain aids rangelands, fills stock ponds
Tim Hearden
And so, as the public mind is turned by the dance of sugar-plum fairies, there appears a thoughtful, critical piece of excellent reporting on the high speed rail project. -- blj
12-24-14
Sacramento Bee
California carbon funds are an uncertain benefit for high-speed rail
BY DAVID SIDERS
http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/transportation/article4956447.html
Although landowners would love you to believe that farming and residential development are totally different operations, farmers being salt-of-the-earth, honest, God-fearing Jeffersonian yeomen of rural America, developers being mysteriously powerful, immensely rich city slickers, farming is in fact just as much "development" as residential construction is in terms of its effects on the environment and its returns of investment.
In the October 15th Merced City Council meeting, an item appeared under "Reports" that asked for a resolution that the