Fight Fair

Approved Class War Weapons

By Brian McFadden

Click here to read the rules of engagement.

VIDEO: Hubble the Harbor Seal gets released from Blue Shutters Beach

Mystic Aquarium Marine Mammal Rescue program does it again
By Will Collette with material from Mystic Aquarium and tech help from Tom Ferrio

Sorry about not giving you a head's up on this morning's release of "Hubble," a harbor seal who was rescued as an abandoned, approximately 2-week old pup in Wells, Maine.

"Hubble" received his first round of treatments at the University of New England in Biddleford, ME before being transferred to Mystic to complete his rehab.

Once his health problems were resolved and he was fit to be released, the folks at Mystic brought him to Charlestown where they do most of their releases.

The fine photo of Hubble to the left, as well as the video below come to you courtesy of the Mystic Aquarium. I've straightened out arrangements with them to get advance notice of future releases which, of course, we'll pass on to you.

Video below:

Tavares will announce on Monday

Angel is in!

By Bob Plain  in Rhode Island’s Future - See more at: http://www.rifuture.org/angel-is-in.html#sthash.86b8TsdM.dpuf

Providence Mayor Angel Taveras makes it official on Monday as the Providence Journal reports he’ll announce he’s running for governor next week. WPRI also reported the news last night.

Taveras, the “Head Start to Harvard” first Latino mayor of Providence is a champion of progressive values and local liberals are inspired by his candidacy in the same way we were with Barack Obama in 2008. 

A key difference is Taveras has executive political experience as mayor of the Capital City. He averted a financial crisis in Providence by negotiating compromises with organized labor and local tax-exempt nonprofits.

Taveras will likely square off against General Treasurer Gina Raimondo, who has come under fire lately for cutting public sector pensions and then reinvesting those savings in volatile alternative investments with high fees for money managers. 

Green energy for less

R.I. Solar Power Getting Less Expensive

By TIM FAULKNER/ecoRI.org News staff

EDITOR'S NOTE: federal tax credits for renewable energy are scheduled to expire at the end of this year. NOW is the time to consider green energy and energy efficiency before the tax credits go away.

Prices are dropping for renewable energy in Rhode Island. The latest round of fixed-pricing contracts for new solar energy projects are down between 27 percent and 45 percent since the start of the program in 2011.

The decreases are happening in the state’s distributed generation, or DG contracts program, which awards 15-year electricity purchase agreements for large wind and solar projects. The agreements aim to advance the state’s wind and solar energy sectors by providing fixed pricing, an agreement that helps the financial viability of the project.

So far, 27 contracts have been awarded since the DG program was approved by the General Assembly two years ago. Twenty-five of the projects were awarded for solar arrays. The first solar contracts were priced at 34 cents per kilowatt-hour, the latest prices are at 16 cents.

UPDATE: Big Party Tonight! Actually Last week.

Found on the top of the heap in the paper recycling bin at the CRCC

For our humor-challenged readers, please note that the following is a work of satire, a lampoon in the tradition of The Onion. While there was indeed a “members-only” party by the Ill Wind group, the particulars of the event are made-up (since the author was not invited). No Chariho School staff were involved in the event. No animals were harmed in the writing of this gluten-free essay.

We are re-running this piece one week after its original publication to provide you with this clarification. To read our equally tongue-in-cheek review of the party, click here.

To: All Illwind Coalition Members-Only

From: Maureen and Ron Areglado

Re: Whalerock Sale-a-bration

Dearest Illwind Coalition Members-Only,

Please join us at our tastefully appointed (not elected) Partridge Run home for a wonderful evening of tranquility and self-gratification as we reflect on the trials and tribulations wrought upon us by three years of turbine-induced terror, and sing out for the whole world to hear, “We have overcome!”

Our evening will begin promptly sometime after 7 pm with an opening invocation by Ron, followed by a short lecture, “Whalerock, My Way” by Michael Chambers, Illwind Coalition’s self-appointed (not elected) communications chairperson.

Mike will describe the ancient secret mind-control techniques he utilized to channel St. John the Baptist to guide us to a successful outcome.

The USDA’s Reckless Plan

The government intends to spread a failed pilot program that decreased food safety to every hog plant in the nation.

By Jill Richardson

My friend Jim, a farmer, jokes about bringing a bowl of manure and a spoon to the farmers’ markets where he sells his beef. “My beef has no manure in it, but you can add some,” he’d like to tell his customers.

I’m sure you’d pass on manure as a condiment. But unless you’re a vegetarian or you slaughter your own meat, you may have eaten it. And if the USDA moves forward with its plan to make a pilot program for meat inspection more widespread, this problem can only get worse.

Manure isn’t supposed to wind up on your dinner table. It’s a major risk factor for E. coli and other foodborne pathogens. And, when the animals are alive, meat and poop don’t come in contact. It’s only in the processing plant where the contamination can take place.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: The Second Season – On The Fly

Episode 1 – The Bucket List

By Robert Yarnall

Robert Yarnall, aka Bob aka a variety of other more colorful, not necessarily family-friendly descriptors, is a native Rhode Islander (shudder) who landed in Charlestown with his wife Pat circa 1984. 

They have two wonderful daughters, Kristen and Kathryn, who reaped the benefits of growing up in Charlestown when it was a predominately family-oriented community, as opposed to the looming retirement villa motif that seems to be the preferred default outcome of certain political entities we all know & love.

Yarnall Jr. was born at Quonset Point NAS in 1950, the first of two sons of Robert J. Sr. and Jean M. Yarnall, both military veterans of the United States Navy who met while assigned to Quonset during the post-war 1940s. 

During the ’60s, career Navy Chief Aviation Machinist Mate Yarnall was assigned to aircraft carrier antisubmarine warfare squadrons based primarily at Quonset and was a member of several aircrews who utilized the Charlestown Auxiliary Air Field landing strip to practice carrier landings. Jean was also a USN Chief Petty Officer (CPO) who operated a LINC Trainer (flight simulator) to teach instrument flying skills to naval aviators. 

The 2012 Charlestown Memorial Day Parade marked the first time that both Chief Yarnalls were unable to participate in the event atop the official Veteran’s Float due to health issues. Bob Sr. is still with us, but Jean joined her shipmates on the Perpetual Sea this past April. Their complete military records, from recruitment through retirement, including duty stations, campaign medals and meritorious service commendations, are archived at the Newport Naval War College History Museum, permanently available for research by military historians and other interested parties.

Just around the beginning of our seventh decade on the planet, those of us who have not yet left the building to join Elvis realize that the clock is indeed ticking. If there’s any special place we want to visit, any unique activity we want to pursue, any blaze-of-glory moment we would like to experience, now is the time.

Raised by wolves

From Fake Science

What fast food really costs you

Enviro News Wrap

LA Times Says NO to Deniers; Economic Impact of Climate Change; Challenges to EPA Carbon Regulation, and more…

GlobalWarmingisReal contributor Anders Hellum-Alexander wraps-up and comments on the climate and environmental news headlines for the past week:

The LATimes has decided to not publish any letters to the editor that contain factual inaccuracies regarding climate change. Not surprisingly, the conservative media freaked out and framed it as a repression of debate. 

Debate is healthy, but to be of any real value it needs to be based on fact. Ignoring facts makes a real debate impossible.

Climate change has an economic impact, and a large one at that. The Asian Development bank did a study and found that climate change could reduce the GDP of Asian countries.

Worm Ladies open house on Saturday

 For more information, please contact Nancy via wormladies@verizon.net or by phone, 401-322-7675.

The Worm Ladies website.

Labor wars at Lawrence & Memorial Hospital continue

Westerly Hospital’s new owner recruits strike-breakers, opens up Cayman Islands account

By Will Collette

The actions of the management of Lawrence and Memorial Hospital against its own workers have become so alarming that Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy has intervened. 

Malloy wrote to L&M’s boss Bruce Cummings after the National Labor Relations Board lodged a formal complaint against the hospital for unfair labor practices. Click here to read his letter.

The Governor cited L&M’s practice of transferring jobs out of the unionized hospital and into a non-union, wholly-owned subsidiary. This action, a practice called “double-breasting,” violates the National Labor Relations Act and is one of the several counts in the NLRB charges against L&M.

Malloy also expressed concerns about the fate of the remaining unionized workers at the hospital after L&M has imposed several sharp cutbacks in its workforce after meeting with workers and union representatives on September 25.

Makes me dizzy

Tea Party Logic

By Tom Tomorrow

Click here to take a spin.

Remember what happened when George Bush's Medicare Drug Plan was rolled out?

From the Daily Kos. Read more by clicking here.

Answers in a Jif

'Peanut Butter' Test Can Help Diagnose Alzheimer's Disease, Researchers Find

Science Daily

University of Florida researcher Jennifer Stamps demonstrates
the peanut butter test. Researchers have found that patients
in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease have an asymmetry in
their ability to detect smells, with the left nostril becoming
weaker than the right. (Credit: UF Health file photo)

A dollop of peanut butter and a ruler can be used to confirm a diagnosis of early stage Alzheimer's disease, University of Florida Health researchers have found.

Jennifer Stamps, a graduate student in the UF McKnight Brain Institute Center for Smell and Taste, and her colleagues reported the findings of a small pilot study in the Journal of the Neurological Sciences.

Stamps came up with the idea of using peanut butter to test for smell sensitivity while she was working with Dr. Kenneth Heilman, the James E. Rooks distinguished professor of neurology and health psychology in the UF College of Medicine's department of neurology.

She noticed while shadowing in Heilman's clinic that patients were not tested for their sense of smell.