Jim Main, Sr., takes flight to Spirit World

With a heavy heart I share with you the news of Jim Main Sr., (Gros Ventre) passing to the Spirit World. As many of you may remember Jim Main, he was a steadfast and unrelenting warrior for Indigenous Peoples and especially for our homelands and sacred sites. In fact, his words and guidance helped inform our Sacred Sites Protection Campaign – including our memorable person Sacred Earth Summit in 2001 in Seattle, WA, and again, in 2002 in San Diego, CA.

A member of the White Clay Society, Jim was a treasured leader to Seventh Generation Fund for many years. He will be sorely missed by our organization. We trusted Jim. We were honored when he attended our convenings and shared his great wisdom, wit, and generous spirit. He taught us through his conduct and his dedication. We looked to him often to help us. And, he was always generous.

Jim was a true and consistent warrior, to be sure. And, as such, he was also a gracious, kind, thoughtful and honorable leader that set for us a clear pathway of how to continue work on behalf of our respective peoples.

Jim would be so pleased to know of recent sacred sites victories in places like Panhe in California, and just a couple of days ago in Zuni, New Mexico. It would have been great to march with him in Redding, in the struggle to protect Hatchet Mountain (Pit River Country) from (so-called green) windmills that will damage a sacred area, and severely impact golden and bald eagle habitat. He knows, where he is now in the other world, that we will continue the good fight for our peoples. Today, in mourning, and reflecting on how much we have learned from Jim Main Sr., we carry forward – heavy hearted but as determined as ever to strive, to fight, to honor our ancestors, as he did.

It is always so hard when we lose one of our elders. The world seems that much emptier, bigger, more difficult to travel through. Jim’s presence meant a great deal to so many of our community and projects. SGF sincerely hopes that our work continues to carry forth the great legacy and integrity of Jim Main Sr., a warrior of character, determination, and outstanding leadership. On behalf of our organization, board, staff and the Indigenous communities we serve throughout the Indigenous World, I extend a heartfelt condolence to Jim’s family, community and Nation.

Editorial: Mining protected as salmon dwindle

The California Department of Fish and Game said “no” to fish this week and “yes” to gold miners. Even though experts within DFG have said that suction dredge gold mining is having “deleterious effects on fish,” including endangered coho salmon, the department declined to further restrict gold miners who use giant dredges to vacuum up rock and sand from creek and river bottoms, likely killing fish in the process.

In a petition to the state, the Karuk Indian Tribe and several environmental organizations had asked the department to curtail dredging on sensitive stretches of waterway. The department said it could not act until it completed a court-ordered review of the issue. But DFG was supposed to complete that review last July. It hasn’t even begun.

Meanwhile, so serious is the decline of salmon that federal regulators banned fishing off the coasts of California and Oregon last year. State officials say the mining restriction requested by the Karuks would do nothing to address ocean conditions, which are suspected to be the main cause of the decline. Suction dredge gold miners insist that global warming and dams are the culprits and that their mining operations actually improve fish habitat.

Block vote on reactor

Following a 3 1/2-year review of the license renewal application for the Oyster Creek nuclear generating station in Lacey, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Wednesday may, for all intents and purposes, decide whether to allow the plant to operate for another 20 years.

To head off any chance the NRC will give Oyster Creek the green light next week, the state Department of Environmental Protection should seek a federal injunction to prevent a vote until all of the recommendations made by the NRC licensing board for further analysis of the plant’s drywell — the steel barrier surrounding the reactor that is designed to contain radiation in the event of an accident — are heeded.

The state and an attorney representing the groups opposing relicensing have asked the NRC to hold off on a vote until a further analysis of the drywell is completed. But the NRC could reject the request, eliminating the final hurdle to the commission ordering its staff to issue a license renewal. That must not be allowed to happen.

Workers walk out of power station

MORE than 100 contractors walked out at Hartlepool Power Station as part of a national dispute over the use of foreign workers.

The dispute was sparked by plans to give hundreds of jobs to Italian and Eastern European workers in Lincolnshire.

Moves to bring in up to 400 Italian and Portuguese contractors to work on a £200m plant at the Lindsey Oil Refinery sparked the bitter protests which have escalated since midweek.

New nuclear reactor’s waste is seven times more hazardous, Greenpeace exposes

International— Greenpeace has uncovered evidence that nuclear waste from the European Pressurised Reactor (EPR), the flagship of the nuclear industry, will be up to seven times more hazardous than waste produced by existing nuclear reactors, increasing costs and the danger to health and the environment.

The revelation comes soon after President Sarkozy’s decision to build a second EPR in France.

The alarming evidence was buried in the environmental impact assessment report from Posiva, the company responsible for managing waste at the world’s first EPR under construction at Olkiluoto in Finland, and in EU-funded research

LET’S STOP THE NUCLEAR PORK IN THE STIMULUS PACKAGE!

Dear Friend,

As you probably know by now, the economic stimulus package approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee includes up to $50 Billion in new taxpayer loan guarantees that can be used for construction of new nuclear reactors and “clean coal” plants (an oxymoron if there ever was one…). We need to tell the Senate that we’re not willing to risk our money on nuclear power, that we don’t want more radioactive waste in our communities, and that we do want Congress to support safer, cleaner and cheaper energy resources like solar, wind and energy efficiency.

WITH YOUR HELP, WE CAN WIN THIS BATTLE!

Organizations: Please sign on to the grassroots sign-on letter by clicking here. Please sign by 5 pm on Tuesday, February 4, 2009.

Individuals: While the sign-on letter is for organizations only, if you have not already done so, please e-mail your Senators by clicking here. Ask your friends and colleagues to send a letter as well. And please follow up your e-mails with phone calls to your Senators at 202-224-3121.

Everyone: Please forward this e-mail widely–send to all your lists and contacts. We’ve already generated more than 2200 letters to the Senate in the past 24 hours! Let’s keep it up!

We will keep you informed about what happens with this issue and any further actions you can take

American Indians could reap almost $3B in stimulus

WASHINGTON – American Indians stand to gain almost $3,000,000,000 as part of the economic stimulus moving through Congress, money that could help some of the nation’s poorest communities rebuild roads, improve health care and boost employment that has lagged behind the rest of the country for decades.

The Senate Appropriations Committee on Tuesday included $2,800,000,000 for Indian tribes in its portion of the nearly $900,000,000,000 economic stimulus bill, and a House version to be voted on Wednesday includes a similar amount. That includes hundreds of millions of dollars for schools, health clinics, roads, law enforcement and water projects.

Dante Desiderio, an economic development policy specialist at the National Congress of American Indians, which has lobbied for the money for the past year, calls the bill a “once in a lifetime opportunity” for tribes.

Take Nukes Off the Table

Way back in August of 2007, Barack Obama having declared he was a candidate for the Presidency of the United States, some “reporter” asked him whether he would be willing to use nuclear weapons, either in the War on Terror or to prevent “nuclear proliferation” by those dirty Mullahs.

To the absolute delight of (a) Dubya the Dimwit, (b) Bomb-Bomb-Iran McCain and (c) Hillary the Chicken-Hawk, candidate Obama replied;

“I think it would be a profound mistake for us to use nuclear weapons in any circumstance – involving civilians. Let me scratch that. There’s been no discussion of [using] nuclear weapons. That’s not on the table.”

Actually, the use of nuclear weapons against civilians has long been “on the table,” going back to 1945, when President Truman deliberately murdered many hundreds of thousands of Japanese, apparently as a warning to Joseph Stalin to halt further Soviet occupation of territories in both Europe and Asia. Or Else!

And, according to Adm. Mike Mullen, the holdover Bush-Cheney Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, when asked by the Jerusalem Post last week whether the potential for military action against Iran had changed, Mullen replied “I don’t think the new administration has taken any options off the table, including military force.”

Leaving aside the propriety of the Chairman of our Joint Chiefs of Staff even responding to questions put to him about Obama-Biden policy by journalists – particularly Israeli journalists – how did President Obama’s press-secretary respond when asked for clarification of Mullen’s remarks?

“In tackling Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, alleged support for terrorism and threats against Israel,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said “we must use all elements of our national power [including, apparently, our use of nukes against those who don't have nukes] to protect our interests as it relates to Iran.”

Hey, why not? If nuking hundreds of thousands of totally innocent women and children enabled Truman to protect our interests as it related to Joe Stalin, maybe it’ll work for Obama.

If you’re wondering how Truman came to nuke all those helpless civilians in August, 1945, barely three months after he discovered – upon succeeding FDR as President – that we were close to developing such a thing, you might check out a truly remarkable American Experience documentary, entitled The Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer, originally broadcast just last week.

Of course, the documentary is only tangentially about Truman and his fatally flawed understandings of what nukes (to say nothing of thermo-nukes) were, how they worked and what – if anything – they were good for.

As the documentary makes clear, Oppenheimer served as the indispensable Director of the Los Alamos team, which, as a result of about a year’s intensive effort, designed and successfully tested the first implosion fission device, which utilized a near-critical mass of almost pure Plutonium-239.

Truman and others believed (falsely) that if only we kept secret what Oppenheimer and his extraordinary team had done, Russian scientists would never be able to duplicate it.

What the documentary does not make clear – perhaps deliberately – was that there were two very different nukes developed. “Little Boy,” the nuke Truman dropped on Hiroshima, was not all that difficult to develop. In fact, they never even bothered to test it.

Simplicity, itself, a 60 pound projectile of almost-pure Uranium-235 was propelled down a gun-barrel at another 60 pound target of almost-pure Uranium-235. The principal difficulty in producing such a nuke was in producing hundreds of pounds of almost-pure Uranium-235, and Oppenheimer had almost nothing to do with that production.

(It is interesting to note that metallurgist A.Q. Khan – sometimes referred to incorrectly as the Father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb – had everything to do with the production of hundreds of pounds of almost-pure Uranium-235, and almost nothing to do with the design and testing of the bomb, itself.)

Now, for various reasons, no one who can make an implosion-type nuke, requiring only a few pounds of almost-pure Plutonium-239, ever bothers to design, test, produce and stockpile Uranium-235 gun-type nukes.

And when the Russians did test their first nuke, in 1949, it was a Plutonium-239 implosion-type nuke, apparently very similar to the one we first tested in 1945.

So, Truman and others concluded (falsely) that the Russians must have stolen the design from us. Consequently, the reasoning went, if we improved our security and then went ahead – as Edward Teller and others urged – to develop the so-called “Super,” which was to use a Plutonium-239 implosion-nuke as a trigger, to ignite a thermonuclear explosion, then the stupid Russians would disappear, permanently, from our rearview mirror.

How to improve security? Well, get rid of all those Commie spies, in every closet and under every bed. And above all, get rid of Oppenheimer.

Robert Oppenheimer had openly consorted with known members of the Communist Party in the 1930s, his mistress was a member, his brother Frank was a member and Frank’s wife was also a member.

Now, Robert Oppenheimer had always opposed Teller’s “Super,” primarily on the grounds that it would not be – could not be – militarily useful. There were no targets for such a doomsday device.

(Oppenheimer has basically been vindicated for having this view. Although we could easily have 100-Megaton yield nukes in our stockpile, most of them are less than a thousandth of that.)

Anyway, in October 1952, we tested a two stage thermonuclear device (sited on a small island in the Pacific, which ceased to exist), reportedly weighing a total of 82 tons, and having a yield of about 10 megatons.

But wouldn’t you just know it. Just 3 years later those pesky Russians tested their first thermonuclear device, having a yield of 1.6 Megatons. However, here’s the kicker – they dropped theirs from an aircraft!

Obviously, their TN-weapon didn’t weigh 82 tons, and you can bet your sweet bippy they didn’t steal the secret on how to make it deliverable by aircraft from us. In fact, it was only after we studied the rad-chem fallout that we figured out what their secret was.

Okay, so Truman was about as wrong about nukes as any President could possibly be. The option of nuking civilians should never have been on the table then, and if Obama really wants “change we can believe in,” he should take it off the table. And the sooner the better.

Way back in August of 2007, Barack Obama having declared he was a candidate for the Presidency of the United States, some “reporter” asked him whether he would be willing to use nuclear weapons, either in the War on Terror or to prevent “nuclear proliferation” by those dirty Mullahs.

To the absolute delight of (a) Dubya the Dimwit, (b) Bomb-Bomb-Iran McCain and (c) Hillary the Chicken-Hawk, candidate Obama replied;

“I think it would be a profound mistake for us to use nuclear weapons in any circumstance – involving civilians. Let me scratch that. There’s been no discussion of [using] nuclear weapons. That’s not on the table.”

Actually, the use of nuclear weapons against civilians has long been “on the table,” going back to 1945, when President Truman deliberately murdered many hundreds of thousands of Japanese, apparently as a warning to Joseph Stalin to halt further Soviet occupation of territories in both Europe and Asia. Or Else!

And, according to Adm. Mike Mullen, the holdover Bush-Cheney Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, when asked by the Jerusalem Post last week whether the potential for military action against Iran had changed, Mullen replied “I don’t think the new administration has taken any options off the table, including military force.”

Leaving aside the propriety of the Chairman of our Joint Chiefs of Staff even responding to questions put to him about Obama-Biden policy by journalists – particularly Israeli journalists – how did President Obama’s press-secretary respond when asked for clarification of Mullen’s remarks?

“In tackling Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, alleged support for terrorism and threats against Israel,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said “we must use all elements of our national power [including, apparently, our use of nukes against those who don't have nukes] to protect our interests as it relates to Iran.”

Hey, why not? If nuking hundreds of thousands of totally innocent women and children enabled Truman to protect our interests as it related to Joe Stalin, maybe it’ll work for Obama.

If you’re wondering how Truman came to nuke all those helpless civilians in August, 1945, barely three months after he discovered – upon succeeding FDR as President – that we were close to developing such a thing, you might check out a truly remarkable American Experience documentary, entitled The Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer, originally broadcast just last week.

Of course, the documentary is only tangentially about Truman and his fatally flawed understandings of what nukes (to say nothing of thermo-nukes) were, how they worked and what – if anything – they were good for.

As the documentary makes clear, Oppenheimer served as the indispensable Director of the Los Alamos team, which, as a result of about a year’s intensive effort, designed and successfully tested the first implosion fission device, which utilized a near-critical mass of almost pure Plutonium-239.

Truman and others believed (falsely) that if only we kept secret what Oppenheimer and his extraordinary team had done, Russian scientists would never be able to duplicate it.

What the documentary does not make clear – perhaps deliberately – was that there were two very different nukes developed. “Little Boy,” the nuke Truman dropped on Hiroshima, was not all that difficult to develop. In fact, they never even bothered to test it.

Simplicity, itself, a 60 pound projectile of almost-pure Uranium-235 was propelled down a gun-barrel at another 60 pound target of almost-pure Uranium-235. The principal difficulty in producing such a nuke was in producing hundreds of pounds of almost-pure Uranium-235, and Oppenheimer had almost nothing to do with that production.

(It is interesting to note that metallurgist A.Q. Khan – sometimes referred to incorrectly as the Father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb – had everything to do with the production of hundreds of pounds of almost-pure Uranium-235, and almost nothing to do with the design and testing of the bomb, itself.)

Now, for various reasons, no one who can make an implosion-type nuke, requiring only a few pounds of almost-pure Plutonium-239, ever bothers to design, test, produce and stockpile Uranium-235 gun-type nukes.

And when the Russians did test their first nuke, in 1949, it was a Plutonium-239 implosion-type nuke, apparently very similar to the one we first tested in 1945.

So, Truman and others concluded (falsely) that the Russians must have stolen the design from us. Consequently, the reasoning went, if we improved our security and then went ahead – as Edward Teller and others urged – to develop the so-called “Super,” which was to use a Plutonium-239 implosion-nuke as a trigger, to ignite a thermonuclear explosion, then the stupid Russians would disappear, permanently, from our rearview mirror.

How to improve security? Well, get rid of all those Commie spies, in every closet and under every bed. And above all, get rid of Oppenheimer.

Robert Oppenheimer had openly consorted with known members of the Communist Party in the 1930s, his mistress was a member, his brother Frank was a member and Frank’s wife was also a member.

Now, Robert Oppenheimer had always opposed Teller’s “Super,” primarily on the grounds that it would not be – could not be – militarily useful. There were no targets for such a doomsday device.

(Oppenheimer has basically been vindicated for having this view. Although we could easily have 100-Megaton yield nukes in our stockpile, most of them are less than a thousandth of that.)

Anyway, in October 1952, we tested a two stage thermonuclear device (sited on a small island in the Pacific, which ceased to exist), reportedly weighing a total of 82 tons, and having a yield of about 10 megatons.

But wouldn’t you just know it. Just 3 years later those pesky Russians tested their first thermonuclear device, having a yield of 1.6 Megatons. However, here’s the kicker – they dropped theirs from an aircraft!

Obviously, their TN-weapon didn’t weigh 82 tons, and you can bet your sweet bippy they didn’t steal the secret on how to make it deliverable by aircraft from us. In fact, it was only after we studied the rad-chem fallout that we figured out what their secret was.

Okay, so Truman was about as wrong about nukes as any President could possibly be. The option of nuking civilians should never have been on the table then, and if Obama really wants “change we can believe in,” he should take it off the table. And the sooner the better.

Way back in August of 2007, Barack Obama having declared he was a candidate for the Presidency of the United States, some “reporter” asked him whether he would be willing to use nuclear weapons, either in the War on Terror or to prevent “nuclear proliferation” by those dirty Mullahs.

To the absolute delight of (a) Dubya the Dimwit, (b) Bomb-Bomb-Iran McCain and (c) Hillary the Chicken-Hawk, candidate Obama replied;

“I think it would be a profound mistake for us to use nuclear weapons in any circumstance – involving civilians. Let me scratch that. There’s been no discussion of [using] nuclear weapons. That’s not on the table.”

Actually, the use of nuclear weapons against civilians has long been “on the table,” going back to 1945, when President Truman deliberately murdered many hundreds of thousands of Japanese, apparently as a warning to Joseph Stalin to halt further Soviet occupation of territories in both Europe and Asia. Or Else!

And, according to Adm. Mike Mullen, the holdover Bush-Cheney Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, when asked by the Jerusalem Post last week whether the potential for military action against Iran had changed, Mullen replied “I don’t think the new administration has taken any options off the table, including military force.”

Leaving aside the propriety of the Chairman of our Joint Chiefs of Staff even responding to questions put to him about Obama-Biden policy by journalists – particularly Israeli journalists – how did President Obama’s press-secretary respond when asked for clarification of Mullen’s remarks?

North Korea says all agreements with South are void

SEOUL: North Korea sharpened its hostility toward South Korea on Friday by abruptly declaring that it was scrapping a nonaggression pact and all other agreements the two Koreas have signed to ease military and political tensions on the divided Korean Peninsula.

The announcement followed a recent series of sharp comments and aggressive gestures by North Korea that officials and analysts in Seoul said were aimed at getting the attention of the new U.S. administration of President Barack Obama and winning concessions from President Lee Myung Bak of South Korea.

“Relations between the north and south have worsened to the point where there is no way or hope of correcting them,” said a statement from the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea, the North Korean agency in charge of relations with the South. “They have reached the extreme point where the clash of fire against fire, steel against steel, has become inevitable.

Norway Excludes Textron, Barrick Gold From Oil Fund

Jan. 30 (Bloomberg) — Norway excluded Textron Inc. and Canadian miner Barrick Gold Corp. from its oil fund, citing the production of cluster weapons and environmental concerns.

The $300 billion fund will be barred from investing in the companies after a recommendation from the Council on Ethics, the Oslo-based Finance Ministry said in a statement today. Textron, the maker of Bell helicopters and Cessna planes, was excluded because of the international treaty banning cluster weapons from 2008, the ministry said.

“The company produces cluster weapons, which are banned,” Finance Minister Kristin Halvorsen said. Barrick was excluded because of “an unacceptable risk of the fund contributing to serious environmental damage,” the ministry said.