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Friday, March 3, 2017     

New York -- An Empire State for Billboards- Leaving New York State and entering Vermont is almost like going to another country. One leaves the billboards and other signs that litter the New York landscape and go to a state that is billboard-free. In recent times, adding to its sign pollution, New York State has erected--all over Long Island and upstate--signs boosting itself. And there is a strong negative reaction to the signs blighting the state's landscape.

Friday, February 24, 2017     

Fight Against Long Island's Biggest Noisemaker The efforts of Long Island, New York's, Town of East Hampton to quell aircraft noise involving the town-owned airport have been negated by a federal appeals court. Thus what has become in warm-weather months Long Island's biggest noisemaker will continue to make a racket. A new organization, Say No to KHTO, is fighting to have the town shut down its airport and open the more than 600 acres for other uses.

Friday, January 13, 2017 (3 comments)     

Shutdown of Indian Point and Experiences of Engineer 30 Years in Nuclear Industry The good news -- the very good news -- is that the Indian Point nuclear power plants will be closed. The bad news -- the very bad news -- is that there are still many promoters of nuclear power in industry and government still pushing and the Trump transition team has been "asking for ways to keep nuclear power alive." Meanwhile, here are the experiences of an engineer in the nuclear industry for more than 30 years.

Friday, December 9, 2016     

Renown Farmland-Preservation Program Threatened by Lawsuit The Farmland Preservation Program in Suffolk County on Long Island, New York--a breakthrough for farmland preservation not only on Long Island but across the U.S. where it has been widely emulated--is threatened by a lawsuit.

Thursday, December 8, 2016     

Trump and Space Weapons It is highly likely that the Trump administration will move to have the U.S. deploy weapons in space. If this happens, it will be profoundly destabilizing, setting off an arms race and, also likely, leading to war in space.

Tuesday, November 29, 2016     

Scientific Expert: Horseshoe Crabs Facing Extinction A world expert on horseshoe crabs is worried about their extinction after 455 million years of life on Earth -- largely because of the crab having become a delicacy in nations in Asia. Dr. John T. Tanacredi has studied horseshoe crabs for decades.

Saturday, November 12, 2016 (1 comments)     

Artificial Turf = Toxic Turf For years debates have raged across the nation about the use of artificial turf regarded by critics as toxic turf. Where I live, in Sag Harbor, New York, there'll be a referendum next month that could stop the stuff from being installed where students of Sag Harbor play team sports.

Tuesday, August 2, 2016 (1 comments)     

Cuomo Backs $7.6 Billion Bail-Out of Old, Unaffordable NY Nuke Plants The New York State Public Service Commission -- in the face of strong opposition -- this week approved a $7.6 billion bail-out of aging nuclear power plants in upstate New York which their owners have said are uneconomic to run without government support. The move was in line with Governor Andrew Cuomo's call for continued operation of the plants in order to, he says, save jobs at them. Cuomo appoints the members of the PSC.

Saturday, July 16, 2016 (1 comments)     

"Indian Point" Film Directed and Produced by Ivy Meeropol "Indian Point" is a film about the long problem-plagued Indian Point nuclear power plants that are "so, so risky--so close to New York City," notes its director and producer Ivy Meeropol. "Times Square is 35 miles away." The plants constitute a disaster waiting to happen threatening especially the lives of the 22 million people who live within 50 miles from them.

Friday, July 15, 2016     

Coming Together -- Antidote to Hate The racial strife of recent weeks in the U.S. has reverberated on Long Island, where I live, and in the rest of the New York Metropolitan Area and nation. As an organizer of a demonstration in Riverhead, Long Island said: "It's more than I expected it to be and it's truly a multiracial crowd." Coming together is an antidote to hate. SUNY Old Westbury, where I teach, is committed to diversity and people coming togethe

Thursday, July 14, 2016 (3 comments)     

Sacrificing Green for Green Sacrificing green for green. That's what cutting down woodland and using farmland to erect solar power systems is about. Solar power is great! We have solar panels on our more-than-century-old saltbox house on Long Island, New York. But on Long Island and elsewhere there is a push to clear forests and exploit agricultural land for solar systems--sacrificing green for green

Wednesday, June 29, 2016     

Solar-energized Juno to Arrive at Jupiter on Independence Day What NASA insisted for decades could not be -- a spacecraft using solar energy rather than nuclear power going beyond the orbit of Mars -- will be proven false next Monday, July 4th, Independence Day, when the solar-energized Juno space probe arrives at Jupiter. In space, as on Earth, solar power works.

Monday, March 28, 2016 (7 comments)     

Nuclear Power Plants: Pre-Deployed Weapons of Mass Destruction Pre-deployed weapons of mass destruction -- that's what nuclear power plants are. And that's another very big reason -- demonstrated again with the disclosure that two of the Brussels terrorists were planning attacks on Belgian nuclear plants -- why they must be eliminated.

Saturday, February 27, 2016     

Donald Trump -- a "Con Artist" Donald Trump is finally being identified in the main ring of the 2016 Republican Party political circus in the United States as being a "con artist," as Senator Marco Rubio called him last week.

Friday, February 26, 2016     

Deepwater Wind: Energy Revolution An energy revolution is happening east of Long Island. Deepwater Wind is constructing the nation's first offshore wind farm. A key innovation made by Deepwater Wind is figuring out how wind turbines can be placed in deep water -- over the horizon and out of sight. This eliminates complaints of some about wind turbines being an aesthetic intrusion to coastal areas.

Monday, December 14, 2015 (2 comments)     

Why Is Gas Suddenly $2 a Gallon? OPEC and the Frackers Why has the price of gasoline plummeted to around $2 a gallon. It is largely an attempt to quash one of the most odious of energy processes--fracking--by a most odious of energy organizations, OPEC.

Tuesday, September 8, 2015 (6 comments)     

The "Radioactivity is Good for You" Push The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is considering a move to eliminate the "Linear No-Threshold" basis of radiation protection that the U.S. has used for decades and replace it with the "radiation hormesis" theory -- which holds that low doses of radioactivity are good for people.

Friday, July 31, 2015 (2 comments)     

280th Anniversary of Landmark Event in History of a Free Press--Trial of John Peter Zenger This week marks the 280th anniversary of a landmark event in the history of a free press: the trial of John Peter Zenger in New York. Zenger's newspaper had been going after the tyrannical colonial governor of New York. A jury found Zenger not guilty of seditious libel creating a foundation that was later followed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Friday, July 10, 2015 (3 comments)     

Boeing Patents Design for Nuclear-Powered Aircraft Engine The Boeing Company last week received approval from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for an airplane that combines the use of lasers and nuclear power. Considering getting on an airplane with nuclear-powered engines. Consider the consequences if an atomic airplane crashes. It's a leap into mad science -- and backwards to a 1950s notion of nucleaer-powered aircraft.

Monday, June 29, 2015 (2 comments)     

NASA Studies Nuclear Power in Space and SpaceX Explodes NASA has released a study claiming there is a need for continued use of plutonium-energized systems for future space flights. Meanwhile, a SpaceX rocket has exploded on launch underlining the dangers of using nuclear power on spacecraft.

Wednesday, May 13, 2015 (2 comments)     

Disaster Waiting to Happen at Indian Point An explosion and fire at a transformer at the Indian Point 3 nuclear power plant this weekend was but one of the many accidents that have occurred at the aged, problem-plagued Indian Point nuclear power station 26 miles north of New York City--a disaster waiting to happen.

Saturday, March 14, 2015     

Ben Jones' Crusade Against Tailgating Ben Jones, at 92 the oldest paradmedic in New York State (and probably in the U.S.) has for decades been on a crusade to get action on tailgating. The key problem, he says, is that virtually all motorists in the nation have been -- and continue to be -- incorrectly taught about the distance they should be driving behind the vehicle in front of them.

Sunday, January 11, 2015 (2 comments)     

Advertising at the Movies -- Obnoxious, Punishing Advertising at movie theatres is obnoxious, pushing. And counter-productive for the film industry.

Monday, November 24, 2014 (1 comments)     

Plans for Nuclear Rockets in the Wake of Recent Space Accidents The recent crash of Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo and explosion on launch three days earlier of an Antares rocket further underline the dangers of inserting nuclear material in the always perilous space-flight equation--as the U.S. and Russia still plan.

Thursday, September 4, 2014     

Secret Diablo Canyon Report Exposed As aftershocks of the 6.0 Napa earthquake Sunday in California continued, the Associated Press this week revealed a secret government report pointing to major earthquake vulnerabilities at the Diablo Canyon nuclear plants which are a little more than 200 miles away and sitting amid a webwork of earthquake faults.

Wednesday, August 6, 2014     

Solar Power As Alternative To Nuclear Power in Space -- As On Earth A demonstration that in space as on Earth solar Power is an alternative to dangerous nuclear power is to come this week when a solar-powered spacecraft called Rosetta will rendezvous with a comet at 375 million miles from the Sun. For decades, the U.S. and the Soviet Union, and now Russia, stressed the use of atomic energy in space. Rosetta points the way to how space can be explored safely.

Saturday, May 17, 2014 (1 comments)     

Folly Beach Folly Beach, Yes, there really is such a place. It's a poster child in South Carolina for the folly of dumping sand on the shoreline in the expensive and fruitless attempt to try to hold back the ocean and protect beach houses. In Quogue on Long Island, New York, there is a proposal to use $14 million in taxpayer money to dump sand on their shoreline.

Thursday, April 24, 2014 (3 comments)     

World's Fair Opens 50 Years Ago -- and I Get Fired for Story About It Fifty years ago this week, the New York World's Fair opened -- and by the end of the week I was fired for writing about demonstrations on its opening day protesting racism. "Mr. Moses called and is very upset with you," Wilson Stringer, vice president of the Sunrise Press newspapers, told me. "You're fired."

Thursday, April 3, 2014 (1 comments)     

"G.M. Flaw" and the Deeply Flawed Regulatory System "U.S. Agency Knew About G.M. Flaw But Did Not Act" was the front-page headline of the New York times this week. In fact, the words "G.M. Flaw" could be substituted for by "G.E. Flaw" in its nuclear plants -- like the G.E. plants at Fukushima and the dozens of the same fault-plagued model that are still operating in the U.S., or the words could be replaced by "Pollution Caused by Fracking" or "Poisons in Food."

Tuesday, March 25, 2014 (1 comments)     

Murdering Swans What's with the plan of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to slaughter all 2,200 mute swans -- those beautiful, elegant, graceful birds -- in the state? It's about the dumbest thing the DEC has ever come up with. "It's real stupid," says Larry Penny, for 28 years the director of natural resources and environmental preservation in East Hampton, N.Y. and among the greatest Long Island naturalists.

Monday, March 3, 2014 (9 comments)     

Fukushima: Third Anniversary of the Start of the Catastrophe With the third anniversary of the start of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear catastrophe coming next week, the attempted Giant Lie about the disaster continues -- a suppression of information, an effort at dishonesty of historical dimensions.

Monday, February 3, 2014 (1 comments)     

Chris Christie: The Decline and Fall of "Corporate America's Candidate" for President Much of the U.S. mainstream media had been promoting Chris Christie. TV stresses "likability" in on-air personalities and guests. " But there was Christie--mean-spirited, given to vicious attacks on people--a fixture as a guest on TV. Why? The U.S. business press can be revealing sometimes and the current issue of Fortune is with an article headed: "Chris Christie: Can Corporate America's Candidate Get out of This Jam?"

Monday, January 27, 2014 (1 comments)     

Seedtime -- About the "Magical Reality" of Seeds and the Peril of GMO Seeds Just out is a brilliant book, highly important and beautifully written, by Scott Chaskey, a Long Island farmer, "Seedtime: On the History, Husbandry, Politics, and Promise of Seeds." He tells of the "magical reality" of seeds and the dangers of GMO seeds -- with a spotlight on the corporate giant in the production of GMO seeds, Monsanto.

Friday, October 25, 2013     

Island of Secrets Michael Carroll, author of the best-selling book, "Lab 257: The Disturbing Store of the Government's Secret Plum Island Germ Laboratory," was back on the East Coast, vacationing with his family, and amazed over recent developments concerning Plum Island. The local congressman is trying to keep it in operation -- "utter foolishness" considering the threat the island represents, says Carroll.

Thursday, October 10, 2013 (4 comments)     

Powerful Presentations on Fukushima and Nuclear Power In New York and Boston this week, speaking on the Fukushima nuclear disaster and what it means for the nuclear plants near New York and Boston was a panel that included Naota Kan, prime minister of Japan when the catastrophe began, Gregory Jaczko, chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission at the time, former NRC member Peter Bradford, nuclear engineer Arne Gundersen and Ralph Nader. Their presentations were powerful.

Wednesday, October 9, 2013 (1 comments)     

Tea Party Cabal in Congress and Voter Backlash Will voter reaction to the U.S. government shutdown--notably the effect the Tea Party cabal is having on the public--have an impact in the coming election. Will citizen outrage towards the GOP and particularly the Republican arch-conservatives whose actions have triggered the shutdown result in a voter backlash?

Friday, August 9, 2013 (2 comments)     

Weiner-Spitzer--Outrageous Arrogance Anthony Weiner and Eliot Spitzer--men of outrageous arrogance. Even in New York City, a town used to assertiveness, Weiner's performance as he seeks to run for mayor has been way over the top. Meanwhile, Spitzer, who resigned suddenly as New York governor for "personal failings" after disclosures of his being a regular client of a prostitution ring, is flooding New York with TV commercials as he runs for city comptroller.

Saturday, June 8, 2013 (2 comments)     

The Closing of the San Onofre Nuclear Plant -- A Great Advance for Safe, Clean, Renewable Energy Technologies Southern California Edison's announcement that it will close its troubled twin-reactor San Onofre nuclear power plant--along with other recent setbacks for atomic energy in the United States--marks a downward spiral for nuclear power. And it could--and should--mean a great advance for the implementation of safe, clean, renewable energy technologies.

Thursday, May 16, 2013     

Fundamental IRS Change Called For President Obama got it right and wrong when he stated, "If you've got the IRS operating in anything less than a neutral and nonpartisan way, then that is outrageous, it is contrary to our traditions." He was incorrect in saying "it is contrary to our traditions" for the IRS has for decades gone after organizations and individuals that take stands in conflict with the government at the time. Fundamental change is called for.

Monday, April 29, 2013 (2 comments)     

GMO Food in the U.S. and the Biotechnology Industry's Power Will New York be the first state to require the labeling of food containing what has become known as GMO--genetically modified organisms? More than 60 countries have enacted laws banning the use of GMO in producing food or requiring the labeling of food with ingredients that have utilized genetic modication. But because of heavy pressure by the biotechnology industry, there are no such laws or regulations in the United States.

Monday, March 11, 2013 (1 comments)     

Nuclear Power/Nuclear Weapons -- and A Precarious Future With the second anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear disaster this week, with North Korea having just threatened a "pre-emptive nuclear attack" against the United States and a U.S. senator saying this would result in "suicide" for North Korea, with Iran suspected of moving to build nuclear weapons, with the continuing spread of nuclear technology globally, the future looks precarious as to humankind and the atom.

Friday, March 8, 2013 (3 comments)     

Ernest Moniz: A Pro-Nuclear, Pro-Fracking U.S. Energy Secretary With the nomination of Ernest Moniz to be the next U.S. secretary of Energy, President Barack Obama has selected a man who is not only a booster of nuclear power but a big proponent of fracking, too. What happened to Obama's call for "clean" energy in his 2013 State of the Union address?

Saturday, February 23, 2013 (5 comments)     

On Mayor Bloomberg's Push to Ban Polystyrene Food Packaging New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg last week announced he would push for a ban on polystyrene food packaging. But he will face vested interests that will attempt to block his initiative. His proposed ban is not new in the New York area. Suffolk County on Long Island enacted a first-in-the-United States ban on the use of polystyrene food containers 25 years ago and what a battle it was!

Tuesday, February 5, 2013 (1 comments)     

Steven Chu, Supporter of Nuclear Power, Resigns as U.S. Energy Secretary U.S> Secretary of Energy announced his resignation last week after four years of pushing nuclar power, although he promotd energy efficiency and safe, renewabl energy technologies such as solar and wind, too. But nuclear power remained a major focus of Dr. Chu, a physicist out of the U.S. national nuclear laboratory system. Will his successor also be a nuclear booster?

Wednesday, January 30, 2013     

Will A Free Internet Continue? From seemingly out of nowhre has come the Intrnet -- to be, suddenly, the greatest clobal platform for free expression the world has ever seen. But will it last? Last month, an international conferenc was held that pitted nations seeking greatr governmntal control over the Internet -- led by Russia and China --against countries advocating a hands-off approach which included the United States.

Tuesday, January 1, 2013 (1 comments)     

Our Deeply Dysfunctional Congress No matter what may happen about the "fiscal cliff," the U.S. Congress is now widely seen as deeply dysfunction. Much this has to do with the public perception -- an accurate one -- that most members of Congress are bought and paid for notably via campaign contributions by special interests. Change -- major change -- is desperately needed!

Thursday, December 20, 2012     

Challenging the Gun Lobby, Changing the Culture of Violence We'll soon see whether the gun lobby can be successsfully challenged and the culture of violence that has been growing in the United States changed. President Barack Obama had it right this week in calling for not just words but action. However, it will take continued pressure from public officials and all people if we are to have meaningful results.

Sunday, December 2, 2012 (3 comments)     

The Fiscal Cliff -- and Precipitous Fall of Tax Rates for the Rich President Obama's demand that taxes of the rich be raised is a key issue in the battle that could send the U.S. over a "fiscal cliff." Important in understanding the issue is how the tax rates for the richest Americans have fallen precipitously over the last several decades. They were 91% in the 1950s, 70% in the 1970s. Obama isn't seeking an increase even close -- only a return to what they were in the Clinton presidency.

Sunday, November 11, 2012 (1 comments)     

Lessons of Hurricane Sandy What an ordeal the people of a good part of the United States have been because of Hurricane Sandy -- and many are still going through! What, at this stage, miht be econsidered some of the "lessons learned" from "Frankenstorm" Sandy?

Friday, November 9, 2012 (2 comments)     

Radioactivity and Fracking Fracking for gas not only uses toxic chmicals that can contaminate drinking and groundwater -- it also releases quantities of radioactive poison from the ground that will remain hot and deadly for thousands of years. Just out with a report exposing major radioactive impacts of hydraulic fracturing -- known as fracking -- is Grassroots Environmental Education, an organization in New York, where extensive fracking is proposed.

Sunday, October 21, 2012     

Prescient About America: George McGovern George McGovern, who has jsut died, was prescient about America. WHen he ran for president 40 years ago, he well-understood what the federal government of the United States had become, among other national dysfunctions. It's a shame he wasn't given an opportunity to, as president, change things.

Friday, August 17, 2012 (1 comments)     

The "Under 1 Percent" in Helicopters to the Hamptons Blanket Long Islanders With Raucous Noise It is the "under 1 percent" who come to the vaunted Hamptons by helicopter from Manhattan--and in the process blanket Long Islanders with raucous noise. And Long Islanders have been organizing to fight back.

Tuesday, July 31, 2012     

The Push for More Spaceborne Nuclear Russian Roulette With NASA's plutonium-energized Mars rover, which it calls Curiosity, slated to land on Monday, August 6, there is a push for more use of nuclear power in space. Nuclear boosters, despite the accidents that have already occurred involving space nuclear power, are promoting this game of spaceborne nuclear Russian roulette.

Saturday, July 21, 2012 (3 comments)     

Poverty and Extreme Wealth on Long Island Poverty and extreme wealth on Long Island have been in the national spotlight -- with the airing of an HBO documentary "Hard Times: Lost on Long Island" and a series of lavish fundraisers in the Hamptons for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. The lunch tab at one was $50,000-a-plate. Poverty increases -- while the 1% pay big to dominate the governmental system.

Wednesday, July 11, 2012 (1 comments)     

Nuclear Foxes In Charge of the Nuclear Hen Houses The conclusion of a report of a Japanese parliamentary panel issued last week that the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster was rooted in government "collusion" and thus was "man-made" is mirrored throughout the world. The "regulatory capture" cited by the panel is the patern among nuclear agencies right up to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Tuesday, June 19, 2012 (1 comments)     

Nuclear Worship Nuclear scientists and engineers embrace nuclear power like a religion. Why? They're being in such close proximity to power, literally? Their training and indoctrination -- in the U.S., many in the nuclear navy and/or the insular culture of the government's national nuclear laboratories. In any event. they have corrupted and distorted energy policy as they've pushed their deadly technology in the manner of religiouz zealots.

Monday, June 4, 2012 (4 comments)     

Inviting Atomic Catastrophe The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission will be holding a meeting this week to consider having nuclear power plants run 80 years--although they were never seen as running for more than 40 years because of radioactivity embrittling metal parts and otherwise causing safety problems. The NRC has already extended the operating licenses of most U.S. nuclear plants so they can run 60 years. The NRC is inviting atomic catastophe.

Sunday, May 27, 2012     

Nuclear Rubberstamp Commission The resignation last week of the chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is another demonstration of the bankrupt basis of the NRC -- which, like the agency it succeeded, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, never denied a construction or operating license for a nuclear plant anywhere, anytime. The NRC should also be abolished.

Saturday, May 5, 2012     

Murdoch: His Mission in Media -- Politics With the finding this week by a committee of the British Parliament that Rupert Murdoch is "not a fit person to exercise the stewardship of a major international company," Professor of Journalism Karl Grossman says the Federal Communications Commission should move to prohibit Murdoch from owning television stations in the United States.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012     

Nuclear Titanics On the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, THe Japan Times ran an editorial titled "The Titanic and the Nuclear Fiasco." The same kind of baloney behind the claim that the Titanic was unsinkable is behind the puffery that nuclear power plants are safe.

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