You're Losing Me, Barak, One Bone At a Time.

Today our first African-American, duly elected president, coalition-building genius that he was, declared his whole-hearted support for nuclear power, and the whole sinister machine that fuels it. The passing reference in his first State of the Union address of the necessity for our nation to pursue "safe nuclear energy" was a shot across the bow, and now he’s opened up the howitzers and started blasting away at the very vessel that carried him to his inauguration. He dedicated 8.5 billion of our tax dollars in the form of “loan guarantees” for the nuclear power profiteers in the energy monopolies.

I don’t know if it’s an effort to appease the same powers who hold all the cards with the Piggy Banks, the auto industry, Big Insurance, Big Drugs, and Big Oil, or the Republicrats in Congress, but his efforts to achieve “reform” and accomplish “change” are about as effective as his half-hearted advocacy of “openness,” which have feebly resulted in him seeking the same shelter of executive privilege endlessly enjoyed by his predecessor. --(to be continued, this is going somewhere, I promise)

Victory at Black Mesa Against Peabody Coal

Comment posted to their website-


Marco Good Jan 9th, 2010 at 12:37 am

Good work! This gives us new hope. We are currently in a struggle to stop copper-nickel sulfide mining near the east end of the Mesabi Iron Range in Northern Minnesota. The iron mines are depleted and depressed here and the old mining communities and politicians are eager to undertake the inevitably toxic acid pollution of our pristine water supply here at the top of the East-West Laurentian Divide, directly adjacent to the Vermillion Anishinabe reservation and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and Lake Superior’s North Shore. Please see my blog linked to the above website, or google friends of the boundary waters wilderness. We would so appreciate any tactical advice or contacts you might be able to offer. Thank you. Marco Good, Grand Marais, Mn.

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1. 1 Black Mesa Wins! Peabody’s Coal Mining Permit Revoked : Intercontinental Cry Trackback on Jan 8th, 2010 at 3:56 pm

Polymet/Franconia Sulfide Mining-Embarrass

The Ely Timberjay asked for comments on the proposed copper/nickel mines on the Iron Range. Here's what I came up with so far:

Like every one of your neighbors human, animal, and vegetable in Northeastern Minnesota who are not motivated by greed for minerals and disregard for the true value of our resources, I must register my adamant opposition to the further consideration of the Polymet and Franconia Sulfide Mining operations being pushed by "The New generation of Mining in Minnesota."

The assertion that removal of sulfide ore here at the very top of the watershed for the North American Continent can somehow magically be done in an "environmentally responsible" manner is simply absurd. If there is a proven way to isolate, contain and remove sulfuric and hydrochloric acid from the water and land from which it is extracted, it has never been demonstrated anywhere these mines have operated in the world. There are plenty of examples of the opposite: Vast yellow-orange acid-killed wastelands where nothing green will grow, rotten-egg stinking streams of acid devoid of fish, fowl, and fauna forever. We refuse to let our year-round and vacation homes and international wilderness be laid waste like Sudbury, Ontario which was for the sake of employment in Copper/Nickel mining and smelting turned into a moonscape devoid of any living thing except the humans in that "industry."

The jobs we have in tourism and forestry are too valuable to discard for this short term gain and eternal damage. Besides that, it is just not right. The past, present and future defenders of our Boundary Waters will never allow this vicious assault to proceed.

Any truthful assessment of these operations' environmental impact without including the words "horrific", "devastating" and "irreversible" have to be drafted by the mining corporations themselves. Oh, wait, "truthful assessment" and "mining corporations" don't really fit in the same sentence, now do they? Those who have worked in the mines ought to know that by now. Remember the pensions they promised?

Sincerely, Marco Good, Grand Marais, MN.