Another Gulf oil rig explodes, exposing inconvenient truth that drilling is unsafe

Less than six months after the Deepwater Horizon disaster began...

An offshore oil platform exploded in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday morning, injuring one worker, the United States Coast Guard said.

The production platform, which was operated by the Houston-based Mariner Energy, was positioned in relatively shallow waters — 340 feet deep — and to the west of where a drilling rig leased by BP blew up and sank this spring, killing 11 people and touching off an environmental calamity.

It is not yet known whether the platform is in danger of sinking. The New York Times is reporting that "government officials said the Mariner platform had not been involved in any recent oil and gas production", but Mariner Energy's own press release (not referenced in the article) contradicts this:

Mariner Energy, Inc. (NYSE: ME) confirms that a fire has occurred at a production platform located on Vermilion Block 380, approximately 100 miles from the Louisiana coast. All 13 members of the crew have been evacuated and safely accounted for. No injuries have been reported. In an initial flyover, no hydrocarbon spill was reported.

Mariner has notified and is working with regulatory authorities in response to this incident. The cause is not known, and an investigation will be undertaken. During the last week of August 2010, production from this facility averaged approximately 9.2 million cubic feet of natural gas per day and 1,400 barrels of oil and condensate. Updated information will be provided as available.

Emphasis is mine. Apparently, it was the Coast Guard that erroneously told the media that the platform wasn't producing any oil or gas. I seem to recall they also provided incorrect information in the immediate wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. They need to get their facts straight before they open their mouths.

There apparently is an oil sheen. Mariner's initial press release said "no oil is leaking" but since then people working for the company have seen a slick. It is estimated at one nautical mile by one hundred feet in size.

Mariner has been involved in a string of accidents since 2006, the Houston Chronicle says. Seven resulted from safety violations.

It was penalized for at least two of them.

CultureMap Houston has a post up exploring Mariner Energy's connections to Enron (now defunct) and BP, as well as Apache Corporation, the oil company that was set to take over Mariner. That merger may now be complicated as a result of the Vermilion 380 mess. We'll know more in the coming days.

Media reports about this tragedy have so far been incomplete and conflicting. Be careful drawing conclusions about what happened at this point. One thing we do know: Oil drilling is an inherently risky, unsafe business that has the potential to threaten or claim human lives as well as seriously damage fragile ecosystems. More drilling won't help us achieve energy independence.

POSTSCRIPT: The earlier report of an oil sheen sighting was erroneous. Both the Coast Guard and Mariner Energy say they haven't observed any spill or leak in the ocean, and the fire aboard the platform is now thankfully out.

"Automated shutoff equipment on the platform safely turned off the flow of oil and gas from the platform's seven producing wells before the fire occurred and the crew evacuated," Mariner announced in a news release this afternoon. The company has launched an internal investigation.

(See photos of the fire being extinguished).

The White House did not release a statement in response to the incident, but Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was asked about it during today's press briefing.

"We will continue to gather information as we respond. We obviously have response assets ready for deployment should we receive reports of pollution in the water," Gibbs said.

The White House later confirmed that the President had been briefed on the incident by Deputy National Security Adviser John Brennan.

Environmental activists from the Pacific Northwest and across the nation responded by calling on President Obama to protect America's oceans.

“We are stunned to hear of yet another rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico," said NPI alumnus Brock Howell, State Policy Advocate for Environment Oregon. "President Obama should need no further wake-up call to permanently ban new drilling. He should radically strengthen oversight of the existing offshore oil industry to prevent more accidents like the one today, but also permanently protect the coasts where we don’t drill now."

We agree. We can't end our oil addiction if we keep drilling and drilling. If the President is serious about protecting the environment and making the switch to renewable energy, he'll move to ban all new offshore drilling permanently.

Mayor of Los Angeles urges Californians to stop greed, reject Proposition 23

Back in July, NPI broke the story that BP (yes, that BP) had dumped $65,000 into Tim Eyman's unconstitutional scheme to take away our cherished tradition of majority rule. BP and three other oil companies — Shell, ConocoPhillips, and Tesoro — are collectively responsible for a third of the corporate money that paid for Initiative 1053's signature drive.

Each of these companies happens to own a refinery in Whatcom County that pollutes Washington's waters (no coincidence, obviously).

Each employs a lobbyist in Olympia that looks out for their interests. For BP, it's William Kidd and AlliancesNW. For Shell, it's Steve Gano & Associates. For Tesoro, it's Millennia Public Affairs. For ConocoPhillips, it Jim Jesernig and Dan Coyne.

Each would be affected by an increase in the hazardous materials fee, which the Legislature considered raising last spring.

And so each is bankrolling Tim Eyman's efforts to make it effectively impossible for lawmakers to democratically raise revenue to protect our quality of life.

We can forget about funding for the cleanup of Puget Sound if Initiative 1053 passes. It is critical that we defeat Tim Eyman's Initiative 1053.

It turns out that Washington isn't the only state where dirty oil conglomerate money is at work funding regressive ballot measures. In California, oil companies are trying to hoodwink voters into suspending the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, which requires that emissions in California be reduced to 1990 levels by the year 2020. Today, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa delivered a message to two Texas oil companies that are bankrolling Proposition 23 (the measure to suspend the Solutions Act): Go home!

Flanked by community activists from Latino neighborhoods, Villaraigosa accused San Antonio-based Valero and Tesoro of "dirty tricks," adding that because of asthma from poor air quality, "more Californians will get sick if Prop. 23 passes."

The No on 23 campaign released a four-page report, "Toxic Twins: Soiling the Southland," detailing environmental violations and fines assessed against the two Wilmington refineries in recent years.

Hundreds of California businesses, nonprofit organizations, elected leaders, and civic groups have joined forces to say NO to Proposition 23. It's heartening to see that so many of our brothers and sisters in the Golden State have come together to stand fast against greed. Now it's our turn.

Activists in California know firsthand that sabotaging majority rule leads to partisan gridlock, dithering, and chaos. California's Legislature can't even pass budgets without a two-thirds vote, let alone raise revenue to sustain public services.

Californians have a message for us: Don't let this happen in your state. Don't let Tim Eyman and his dirty oil money win. Stand strong against Initiative 1053.

We only have a few weeks to educate voters about the consequences of I-1053. The conventional wisdom is that this measure can't be defeated. We wholeheartedly reject the conventional wisdom.

We believe I-1053 can be defeated.

We've stopped Tim Eyman cold for two years running, and we can do it again! We at NPI are preparing to launch an aggressive, creative campaign to reframe this toxic initiative, in partnership with other concerned organizations and individuals. We'll be announcing our next steps here, on Facebook, and on Twitter.

Please become a fan of StopGreed if you aren't already, and join us in taking a stand against one of the biggest corporate power grabs in Washington's history.

Apple introduces new me-too products

Apple announced at a carefully orchestrated Bay Area media event today that it's launching a music-oriented social network tied to iTunes and a new incarnation of its "Apple TV" device, which chief executive Steve Jobs admitted hasn't been a bestseller. Jobs also revealed an new iPod lineup and bragged about the number of "iOS" devices that are being activated on a daily basis.

But the focus of the event, according to media reports, seemed to be these two new "me-too" products: Ping (the social network) and Apple TV.

The new Apple TV is essentially a small box of plastic and metal that goes somewhere near your television. It cannot be used to download movies or television shows. It can only be used to stream video.

In that sense, it's no different than a traditional cable or satellite set-top box, which millions of American households already have. Since it is not a computer and cannot be multipurposed, why is Apple even trying to sell the device in the first place? All the box does is pipe rentals over broadband to a television set; this is something cable networks have been doing for years. Admittedly, cable is expensive, but then, so are products sold by Apple.

I can't see many cable customers calling up Comcast and canceling so they can buy a box for a hundred dollars and then pay an additional dollar every time they want to watch just one episode of a television show.

What, exactly, is the market for Apple TV?

What's even funnier is that so far only two networks have signed on to provide content through Apple TV: ABC and Fox. Although both networks' parent companies own cable channels, it's not clear if they are included in the Apple deal.

Since ABC and Fox are over-the-air channels, they are already available — for free — to anyone who owns a television set and an antenna. A person who likes a particular ABC or Fox show and wants to make it "on demand" today can easily do so by buying an inexpensive DVR and setting it to record every new episode, which he or she can then watch for free anytime. DVRs with disc-burning capabilities can be used to cheaply create a DVD collection as well.

I doubt that the Apple TV will have the appeal of the iPhone or even the iPad. The former has definitely become a status symbol... people think that owning one is cool, or makes them cool. In reality, the iPhone is merely a smartphone like its many competitors. It just has a more powerful brand.

What's more, the iPhone has shortcomings that competitors don't have, including a non-removable battery and a closed application ecosystem.

I've been able to make use of basic functionality on my BlackBerry — like copy and paste — that wasn't on the iPhone until like the third generation.

Ping seems to be Apple's attempt to create its own Facebook, anchored by music. Microsoft, of course, has already done something along these lines with Zune:

The Zune Social is a service integrated with Xbox Live that allows users to manage friends, send messages, and compare music. Each user has a personal Zune Tag, which corresponds with their Xbox Live Gamer Tag if they have one.

So many people have joined Facebook that many artists have created a presence there, allowing fans to follow them and comment on new releases. Many artists will doubtless set up shop on Ping too (since iTunes is where many people "buy" music), but people who aren't already using iTunes have little incentive to download it. I prefer digital music that is in a non-proprietary format, with no digital restrictions management, so I don't use iTunes.

Nor do I own an iPod, or have a desire to own one.

The hoopla that Apple generates every time it does one of these "exclusive" media events seems unwarranted to me. I've long held the view that Apple's products are inferior to the competition, and overpriced. I'd rather own a music player that can natively handle Vorbis files, for instance, than something with the Apple logo on it.

Unlike many people, I view my gadgets as tools, not toys. Usability and good design are important in a gadget, but Apple doesn't have a monopoly on either trait. What they do have that nobody else has is reverential media status. And in a media-driven culture, that counts for a lot.

Lisa Murkowski concedes Alaska senatorial primary to Republican rival Joe Miller

Incumbent Republican senator Lisa Murkowski has seen the writing on the wall:

Incumbent Lisa Murkowski has conceded to challenger Joe Miller in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate.

Speaking to reporters at her campaign headquarters in Anchorage, Murkowski said "based on where we are right now, I don't see a scenario where the primary will turn out in my favor."

The concession come after a day of counting absentee ballots in which Murkowski gained little ground on Miller, the Fairbanks attorney backed by former Gov. Sarah Palin and the Tea Party Express.

Murkowski's campaign has already brushed off calls for the Senator to run under the banner of a minor party, like the Libertarian Party. Alaska's Libertarians, who appear to be a principled bunch, have already announced they don't want Murkowski as their candidate, period.

Since Alaska has a sore-loser law, Murkowski cannot file to run as an independent. If she's desperate, she could run under the banner of the Alaska Independence Party - a fringe minor party that supports Alaska's secession from the United States - or she could run as a write-in. The former wouldn't be an option if the AIP follows the Libertarians in rejecting her as their nominee.

But it sounds like she's done:

During a speech in which her voice wavered at times, she said that once she completes her term, "I'm coming back home."

"I'm looking forward to coming back home with my family and looking forward to building this great future, a great future that will not only be with my family but helping to fulfill Alaska's promise, because there's still so much work that remains to be done.

"You are who I am," she told Alaskans.

If she wants, she could probably land a comfy lobbying gig working for an oil company like BP in the near future. Or she could retire quietly to the Last Frontier.

Whether's Miller victory will benefit the candidacy of Democrat Scott McAdams remains to be seen. It certainly shakes up the contest. McAdams is likely to get a boost in resources and buzz with Miller as his opponent. With Murkowski out, McAdams is competing for a newly created open seat.

President Obama's second Oval Office address leaves much to be desired

This evening, President Barack Obama spoke to the nation in his second address from the Oval Office, announcing an end to Operation Iraqi Freedom, which began in March of 2003 when George W. Bush unwisely ordered American troops to invade and occupy Iraq on false pretenses.

The nineteen minute address seemed to have three parts. The first acknowledged the price America has paid for invading Iraq, both in blood and treasure. The second was a defense of the escalation of the conflict in Afghanistan. And the third was a reminder — as if anyone needed one — that our economy is still mired in a recession, and that many working families are without living wage jobs.

The highlight for me was this particular passage, which soberly linked the occupation of Iraq to the fiscal irresponsibility of the Bush error:

Unfortunately, over the last decade, we’ve not done what’s necessary to shore up the foundations of our own prosperity. We spent a trillion dollars at war, often financed by borrowing from overseas. This, in turn, has short-changed investments in our own people, and contributed to record deficits. For too long, we have put off tough decisions on everything from our manufacturing base to our energy policy to education reform. As a result, too many middle-class families find themselves working harder for less, while our nation’s long-term competitiveness is put at risk.

Conversely, the part of the speech I disliked the most was the line, "Yet no one can doubt President Bush’s support for our troops, or his love of country and commitment to our security."

No one? Sorry, but my generosity has limits. I am unwilling to whitewash the past. I disagree with President Obama on all three counts.

I question George Bush's love of country — his patriotism — because he questioned mine while he occupied the White House. No true American patriot would suggest (as Bush and his cronies did) that those who oppose the policies of a particular administration are anti-American.

A real patriot prizes dissent, and doesn't fly the emblem of their political party above the Stars and Stripes, as Bush and his followers did.

A real patriot, in a position of serious responsibility, doesn't crack jokes like, "If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator."

I question George Bush's support for the troops because he sent our soldiers into battle without proper gear, and neglected to ensure quality care was provided for our servicemembers when they returned stateside. And he didn't bother to attend the funerals of those who paid the ultimate sacrifice, because he had better things to do. Like clearing brush at his ranch in Crawford.

George Bush never demonstrated a commitment to our security (lip service doesn't count), so there's nothing to even question there. The Bush error left America more insecure in every respect. Bush's policies weakened our military, our government, our environment, our economy, our health and well being, our workforce, and our international standing. The damage Bush and his cronies inflicted is still being repaired, more than a year and a half into President Obama's term.

I understand that the President wants to move on. Bury the hatchet, so to speak. Leave the past in the past. Unfortunately, as the old adage goes, we are doomed to repeat history when we forget it. That's why we at NPI, like many other progressives, have no intention of ever forgetting the Bush error and the destruction it wrought upon our country.

At the same time, we want to move on as well. But, curiously, the President did not use his speech to look forward. Instead, his remarks dwelled on the present. The address was chock full of the same platitudes and generalities we regularly hear from the White House and from Congress. Nobody is against the generic and undefined platform of job creation, reform, and efficiency. Nobody is against "unleash[ing] the innovation that allows new products to roll off our assembly lines, and nurtur[ing] the ideas that spring from our entrepreneurs."

The best intentions do no good if they are not backed up with action. Where is the concrete plan for getting Americans back to work? Why didn't the President at least talk about the Small Business Jobs and Credit Act of 2010, which Senate Republicans are currently holding up?

Americans already know that these are tough times. What Americans want to hear from Barack Obama is, how do we escape this slump? What, specifically, is being done to spur lending, keep tuition from becoming unaffordable, and protect public services at the state and local levels? How is Wall Street's greed being checked? Those are the kinds of questions Americans are asking and want answered.

The President could do a lot of good by developing and articulating a new strategy for economic recovery. It's time to throw in the towel and abandon the current plan, which isn't working. The President did not do a good job of choosing his economic team, which is a serious problem, because the Great Recession has been and continues to be America's worst enemy.

In particular, Larry Summers (the Director of the White House National Economic Council) shares part of the blame for grinding down the New Deal-era firewall, which could have blunted the severity of the financial crisis.

How can the President talk about not giving back the keys to the country to the architects of the collapse when he himself has already done so by allowing Summers to chart his administration's economic policy?

The President needs to start listening to respected economists like Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz, and stop relying on Larry Summers' bad advice, which has resulted in dithering and inaction. Summers and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner need to be fired and replaced with sharper minds who can provide sound advice.

And the President needs to start writing his own speeches so he can deliver a more cogent and heartfelt message when he speaks to the nation during primetime.

Seattle's DPD: We can't save a tree or grove of trees if somebody wants to cut it down

Longtime readers and supporters of NPI know that one of the most important qualities that sets us apart from other organizations is that we really try to walk our talk, or practice what we preach.

We detest lip service because it is insincere and empty. Platitudes sound good, but they ultimately have no meaning, for actions speak louder than words. That's why we do our banking with a credit union, do most of our printing on recycled paper made from one hundred percent post-consumer content with solid ink, and rely on free software to power our network and our phone system.

For several years now, one of our board members — Steve Zemke — has been at the forefront of efforts to get Seattle Public Schools and the City of Seattle to walk their "green" talk. Steve is an veteran activist who has led initiative campaigns to protect ratepayers from being bankrupted by unnecessary nuclear power plants, encourage recycling of disposable containers, and automatically adjust the minimum wage so it is closer to a living wage.

In 2008, he discovered that Seattle Public Schools was planning to raze a grove of trees at Ingraham High School (which is publicly-owned property) to make room for a campus expansion. The project was among those included in a ballot measure approved by voters the previous year, known as the Building Excellence III capital bond. Unfortunately, as Steve quickly learned, there was and still is nothing excellent about the campus expansion that the district conceived for Ingraham.

Steve and his neighbors have been tirelessly fighting an uphill, multi-year battle to save the Ingraham trees, against great adversity. They've been bullied by Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson's corrupt administration. They've been scorned by Seattle Public Schools' board of directors. And they've been ignored by the City of Seattle's Department of Planning and Development (DPD), which has repeatedly rubber-stamped the project instead of exercising its authority to require changes so Ingraham can get a new building without losing its trees.

District officials could have averted the whole battle by simply asking Ingraham High's neighbors for input before designing the project. But they did not. Instead of consulting with the community, they did all their planning behind closed doors, and then tried to dot their i's and cross their t's quietly, figuring that they could do what they wanted. And when neighbors, including Steve, did object, the district reacted defensively and arrogantly. Rather than admit they had make a mistake, district officials went to great extremes to invent excuses for why they could not change or modify the proposed expansion to avoid razing the tree grove.

After realizing that the district administration had no intention of listening, Steve and his neighbors created a petition to demonstrate the community's concern. The petition was signed by then-King County Executive Ron Sims and state Senators Ed Murray and Ken Jacobsen, along with numerous candidates for elected office.

After accumulating more than half a thousand signatures in just a few short weeks, the petition was presented to the Seattle School Board on April 9th, 2008. By that time, Steve had begun to suspect that the board had zero interest in flexing its oversight muscles and insisting that the campus expansion project go back to the drawing board. He appealed to the board member who represents the neighborhood where Ingraham is located, Peter Maier, with no success.

He was likewise given the cold shoulder by Steve Sundquist, who at the time was serving as the president of the board of Climate Solutions, one of the Northwest's best known environmental groups.

(Sundquist is still on Climate Solutions' board, and we have long wondered why somebody who serves as an officer for an organization committed to advocating "practical and profitable solutions to global warming" would sign off on the needless destruction of more than five dozen mature douglas fir and western red cedar trees on public property he oversees).

Eight of Seattle's nine city councilmembers subsequently sent a letter to the Seattle School Board asking Sundquist, Maier, Sherry Carr, Michael DeBell, Mary Bass, Cheryl Chow, and Harium Martin-Morris to consider alternative designs that would allow the campus to expand while leaving the tree grove intact and undisturbed. But still the board did not act.

Meanwhile, Ingraham neighbors continued to find evidence that the district's rationale for razing the tree grove was phony. As Steve wrote in May 2008:

The Seattle School District does not need to cut down any large trees to build the addition at Ingraham High School. The North side of Ingraham High School has an open grassy lawn that the school district has actually identified as a future building site in their master plan for Ingraham High School. Considering the magnitude of the impact on the current site that clear cuts 2/3 of a magnificent grove of trees, most reasonable persons would scratch their heads and ask, "Why don't you build the proposed addition there and save the trees?"

In August 2008, district officials withdrew their building permit applications with the City of Seattle and hired Weiss Tree Company to raze the grove. "As long as these applications are not pending, no city permits are required for removal of the trees, as none of those trees constitute 'exceptional trees' under city codes," Facilities Manager Fred Stephens wrote in a letter to neighbors.

Left with no other option, the neighbors sued the school district in King County Superior Court. The district moved to cut down the trees in the interim so that the case would be moot, but Judge John Erlick issued a temporary restraining order halting the tree-cutting. Two weeks later, while NPI staff were in Denver covering the Democratic National Convention, Erlick granted the neighbors an injunction which remains in effect today. The injunction prohibits the district from razing the grove until it obtains a master-use permit from the City of Seattle.

Instead of rethinking the Ingraham campus expansion, the district responded by simply refiling its permit application, still intending to displace the tree grove.

In early 2009, Seattle's Department of Planning and Development approved the district's plans, which Steve and his neighbors subsequently challenged. The City Council, meanwhile, passed an interim tree protection ordinance designed to close the loophole in city codes that the school district tried to exploit when it withdrew its building permit applications. Reflecting on the limitations of the city council's good intentions, Steve wrote in February 2009:

Once developers decide to build somewhere, saving trees is not a high priority of the city's Department of Planning and Development. In most cases trees always lose out to construction and development. The job of the DPD is to assist developers in their plans for construction and to gain approval for their projects. The interim tree ordinance still allows trees to be cut down during the development process, even if they are exceptional.

Steve's observation was prescient, because DPD is currently seeking public review and comment on proposed tree regulations that the City Council asked it to develop in May 2009. DPD's final report will be submitted to the City Council by Mayor Mike McGinn this autumn.

The proposed regulations are unfortunately a complete farce:

The proposal calls for ending all protection for mature trees in Seattle. It would rescind Director’s Rules 16-2008 which protects exceptional trees in Seattle.

It would also repeal the interim tree ordinance passed last year by the City Council which among other things protected tree groves and limited the number of trees which could be cut down in any given year. DPD’s proposal runs counter to Resolution 31138, passed by the Seattle City Council last year calling for strengthening trees protections, not weakening them. And it ignores most of the problems identified by the City Auditor in 2009 entitled “Management of City’s Trees Can be Improved.”

DPD's attitude is aptly summed up by the title of this post.

Basically, they're saying, we can't save a tree or a grove of trees if somebody wants to cut it down. Since when have the objectives of protecting urban canopy and fostering smart growth been mutually exclusive?

Reading through the frequently asked questions DPD produced (PDF) as an accompaniment to its proposed report, I was reminded of something I'd read in Suburban Nation a few years ago:

Like many state departments of transportation, Virgina's discourages its state roads from being lined with trees, which are considered dangerous. In fact, they are not called trees at all but FHOs: Fixed and Hazardous Objects. [Virgina Department of Transportation Regulations, 8/95 edition, table A-3-1. The manual adds that "every effort should be made to remove the tree rather than shield it with a guardrail."]

See the similarity? Virgina's DOT considers trees to be dangerous; Seattle's DPD considers them to be a nuisance. DPD's report basically recommends that property owners be encouraged to protect or plant trees, but not be required to. Forbidding property owners from cutting down exceptional trees, as well as requiring permits for tree-felling, "would place a substantial burden on property owners and could create a disincentive to retaining such trees", DPD says in its FAQ.

This is utter nonsense.

It's like arguing that requiring rigorous safety and environmental protection safeguards for offshore rigs would place a substantial burden on oil companies and could create a disincentive to drilling safely. The whole point of having and enforcing regulations is to minimize harm to the public interest.

Because trees can't be restored once they have been chopped down, it makes sense to require a permit for their removal.

A mature tree takes decades to grow. Many species of trees can live for centuries or even millennia. Some of the trees at the Ingraham grove, for instance, are older than the dilapidated school buildings they shadow.

Since DPD has no interest in protecting Seattle's trees, that responsibility should be given to another agency. Steve has suggested the Office of Sustainability and Environment, which seems like a natural choice. OSE could become DSEP... the Department of Sustainability and Environmental Protection, responsible for issuing tree permits and conducting environmental reviews of proposed development, leaving DPD free to concentrate on what its employees obviously consider to be their mission: helping property owners develop their property.

The Ingraham campus expansion serves as an ongoing case in point.

DPD continues to willingly rubber-stamp Seattle Public Schools' every move. The district is still stubbornly pursuing its ill-founded aims after more than two years of litigation. Although Steve and his neighbors succeeded last year in convincing a hearing examiner that DPD had violated Seattle Municipal Code in signing off on the destruction of the tree grove, that did not stop the district from resubmitting its plans yet again (with slight modifications), nor stop DPD from approving them.

The latest incarnation of the plans received the okay last month from the same hearing examiner who had previously scuttled them.

Steve and his neighbors plan to appeal the hearing examiner's decision in King County Superior Court... which is once again their last recourse.

Hopefully a judge will sensibly do what Maria Goodloe-Johnson's underlings, the SPS' board of directors, Mayor McGinn's DPD, and hearing examiner Ann Watanabe did not: Ensure the protection of the majestic trees at Ingraham High School. It's time that the Emerald City started saving the few green spaces it has left, rather than mindlessly permitting the destruction of valuable urban canopy.

Patently ridiculous: Paul Allen sues Apple, Google, Netflix, eBay, Yahoo, and Facebook

Looks like one of Seattle's richest is declaring war on Silicon Valley. Via TechFlash:

A tech licensing company controlled by Paul Allen is suing eleven Internet and retail giants — including Google, Apple, Facebook, Office Depot, Yahoo, YouTube, Netflix and eBay — alleging that they're violating patents on “fundamental web technologies” developed by Interval Research, the now-defunct Silicon Valley lab that Allen created with Xerox PARC veteran David Liddle in the 1990s.

Wired adds:

The four patents at issue allegedly cover basics of online commerce, including recommending products to a user based on what they are currently looking at, and allowing readers of a news story to see other stories based on the current one. Two other patents relate to showing other information on a web page, such as news updates or stock quotes.

I'm not a lawyer — let alone an expert in patent law — but these sound like bogus software patents to me. The United States Patent & Trademark Office has been criticized — deservedly so, in my view — for groundlessly issuing patents to unscrupulous people who then turn around and try to extract large sums of money from individuals and companies allegedly violating the bogus patent(s).

For example:

U.S. Patent No. 6,687,746, now held by Hoshiko, LLC, claimed to cover the method of automatically assigning Internet subdomains, like "action.eff.org" for the parent domain "eff.org." Previous patent owner Ideaflood used this bogus patent to demand payment from website hosting companies offering personalized domains, such as LiveJournal, a social networking site where each of its three million users may have their own subdomain.

The above-mentioned patent was squashed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the world's leading digital rights organization, as part of its Patent-Busting project. EFF probably won't get directly involved in this case, since there are so many high-profile defendants who can afford to hire their own lawyers and analysts to dispute Allen's claims, but it might submit an amicus brief.

It is unclear what Allen hopes to gain by going to court. Not included among the defendants in Interval's lawsuit are Pacific Northwest tech giants Microsoft (which Allen cofounded) and Amazon.com (whose new headquarters in South Lake Union was developed by Allen's investment powerhouse Vulcan, Inc.)

If all the companies Allen is suing have really violated his patents, then so did Microsoft and Amazon.com.

But like I asserted earlier, I think Allen's patents are bogus.

U.S. patent law states that a patent may not be granted if the supposed invention is obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art.

That last sentence is basically a bit of legal mumbo-jumbo which effectively means that an invention which could naturally occur to many different people working in a particular field or industry cannot be patented.

Allen's "inventions" seem to fall under this category.

For example, Patent 6,263,507 appears to describe a website such as NPI's Pacific NW Portal, which aggregates blog posts, podcasts, tweets, and so forth:

In a particular application of the invention, the content of audiovisual news programs is acquired from a first set of one or more information sources (e.g., television news programs) and text news stories are acquired from a second set of one or more information sources (e.g., on-line news services or news wire services). In such a particular application, the invention can enable the user to access the news stories of audiovisual news programs in a random manner so that the user can move quickly among news stories or news programs. The invention can also enable the user to quickly locate news stories pertaining to a particular subject.

Another patent concerns "alerting users to items of current interest" and appears to describe possibly related posts/stories widgets (sometimes carrying the label, You may also be interested in...). Such widgets can be found on hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of websites.

The final two patents concern functionality that serves to capture a user's attention (many scripts for displaying intrusive ads would seem to fall under this description). Again, such widgets can be found on millions of sites.

The issuance of bogus software patents, and bogus patents in general, can have a chilling effect on economic development and prosperity, as explained by Michael Heller in The Gridlock Economy:

The changing rights environment hasn't just affected the behavior of existing firms. It has catalyzed the emergence of its own brand of modern-day robber barons, firms often called "patent trolls." These firms do not invent or make anything; instead, they often seek out and buy control of relatively low-value, weak patents that may be infringed by valuable products. MAD [mutually assured destruction] does not deter this last group. Their business model depends on leveraging defects in the patent system: trolls make money because litigation is chancy, court-ordered remedies exceed the probabilistic value o the litigated patents, and settlements can be coerced from successful product manufacturers desperate to avoid injunctions that shut down their businesses.

In this excerpt, Heller is describing one of the symptoms of patent gridlock — the bane of software developers and drug makers.

Patent gridlock results in something Heller calls the "tragedy of the anticommons", which he defines as "any setting in which too many people can block each other from creating or using a scarce resource."

The U.S. Patent & Trademark Office — and similar agencies in other countries — have gotten into the dangerous habit of rubber stamping applications that seek to patent inventions already in widespread use. "We programmers are often amazed by the simplicity of the ideas that real software patents cover - for instance, the European Patent Office has issued a patent on the progress bar, and one on accepting payment via credit cards. These would be laughable if they were not so dangerous," Free Software Foundation founder Richard Stallman wrote in 2005.

The Foundation for Free Infrastructure maintains that patents for software — like the kind Allen holds — should not be granted at all, because copyright is more than adequate for protecting ownership.

We support this view. It is our hope that Paul Allen's lawsuit ends in failure and results in the revocation of his bogus patents.

That would be the best outcome for the common good.

When companies or individuals are constantly under the threat of patent litigation, they can't innovate or bring new products to market. Gridlock ensues as companies retaliate against patent lawsuits by filing their own lawsuits. Most of the biggest tech companies in the United States are both plaintiffs and defendants in ongoing patent lawsuits. Oracle is suing Google, Apple is suing HTC (a maker of phones that run Android). Patent troll NTC previously sued Research in Motion and extracted a large settlement out of the BlackBerry maker.

I could go on, but I've made my point. There is a reason no country in the world has a purely "capitalist" economy. Too much ownership actually thwarts innovation, cripples markets, and prevents economic growth.

Michael Heller observes:

Private property can no longer be seen as the end point of ownership. Privatization can go too far, to the point where it destroys rather than creates wealth. Too many owners paralyze markets because everyone blocks everyone else. Well-functioning private property is a fragile balance poised between the extremes of overuse and underuse.

Progressives seek to maintain such a balance, while conservatives seek to upset it, naively believing that we'll all benefit if we privatize, privatize, privatize. In reality, we need government to provide a level playing field to prevent the overuse and destruction of scarce resources.

Unfortunately, as I wrote at the beginning of this post, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office is not exercising due diligence when reviewing patent applications. That leads to the approval and existence of "patently ridiculous" patents like Allen's, which in many cases sit undefended for years before their "owner" decides to cash in. This abuse could be potentially stopped or at least mitigated by reorganizing the patent office under new management and procedures instead of attempting the more arduous task of rewriting patent law.

Former Justice Phil Talmadge is not a liberal

Over at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's Strange Bedfellows, Chris Grygiel has a post up commenting on an analysis just published by the right-wing Washington Policy Center which asserts that the Supreme Court is likely to strike down Initiative 1098 as unconstitutional if it is passed. (For those not aware, I-1098 is the one progressive initiative on our ballots this year. It would levy an income tax on high-earners, which would be dedicated to education and healthcare).

Skimming through the post, something Chris wrote caught my eye. The beginning of the fourth paragraph describes the author of the analysis — ex-Justice Phil Talmadge — as "a former Democratic state senator who is considered a liberal."

Considered a liberal... by whom?

Certainly not by people who are actually liberal. The last few times Phil Talmadge's name has come up in a conversation which I took part in was in a negative context.

A real liberal would never provide cover and credibility for a right wing think tank, or write legal opinions on behalf of big oil companies, or endorse the state Supreme Court's two most right-wing justices for reelection, or attempt to thwart the voter-approved expansion of Sound Transit's Link light rail system.

Talmadge doesn't even appear to be a loyal Democrat. Here's a disturbing tidbit from the end of a 2006 Seattle Times article about the contest to replace Party Chair Paul Berendt, who headed the Washington State Democrats for many years:

Talmadge said that until he heard from [State Senator Margarita] Prentice, being party chairman was "the last thing I would have decided to do."

He says he will begin to contact party members. But first he is waiting to hear what Gov. Christine Gregoire thinks of his candidacy.

Talmadge dropped out of the governor's race because of medical issues. He was a tough critic of Gregoire's. During his campaign, he shared opposition research on Gregoire with key allies of Gregoire's opponent, Republican Dino Rossi.

Talmadge said he asked Prentice to check with Gregoire personally to make sure the governor approved. "I wouldn't be foolish enough to do this if the head of the party in effect was someone who couldn't work with me," he said.

Emphasis is mine. Apparently Gregoire was none too happy with the idea of Talmadge heading the party, because less than seventy two hours after the above was published, Talmadge took himself out of the running.

To be fair, Talmadge was a state senator and a justice long before I became an activist, so maybe he was a liberal at one point. But he evidently did not hold firm convictions, because he's working for the other side these days. As I wrote when I reflected on Joe Miller's attack ads against Lisa Murkowski, real liberals do not expend time, talent, and treasure undermining or opposing progressive policy directions. Talmadge, unfortunately, does.

Whatever he is ideologically these days, it can't be accurately described as liberal.

POSTSCRIPT: I guess it's not a surprise that a right wing think tank that manipulates and distorts data would contend that an income tax is unconstitutional based on a bizarrely reasoned Supreme Court decision from the 1930s while failing to acknowledge or admit that Tim Eyman's I-1053 — like I-960 before it — is blatantly unconstitutional. Coincidentally, Phil Talmadge was part of the majority that struck down Tim Eyman's first unconstitutional initiative... I-695.

Shirley Sherrod was fired, Van Jones was forced out... but Alan Simpson gets to stay

Proving that its critics were correct in asserting that it has a double standard, the White House yesterday declined to take action in response to former Senator Alan Simpson's offensive comments about female seniors. President Obama's deputy communications director Jennifer Psaki told reporters: “Alan Simpson has apologized and while we regret and do not condone his comments, we accept his apology and he will continue to serve.”

Let me see if I have this straight.

When an individual targeted for takedown by the Republican Noise Machine gets slimed and taken out of context by the likes of the blowhards at Fixed Noise Channel, senior administration officials unceremoniously abandon the individual in question and send him or her packing without thinking twice about it.

But when a former Republican senator appointed by the President to serve on a task force working on an issue of great importance to the country shoots his mouth off, they let it slide. What gives? What's up with that?

The IOKIYAR rule strikes again.

I could understand keeping Simpson on, despite his inflammatory and derogatory remarks, if the same courtesy had been extended to Shirley Sherrod and Van Jones. But it wasn't. President Obama's senior staff punish loyal people the right wing goes after by cutting them loose.

But they don't take action when an ageist, sexist Republican (who doesn't share our values!) crudely describes Social Security as "a milk cow with three hundred and ten million tits" in a rude email reply to an advocate for seniors.

And Robert "Those people ought to be drug-tested" Gibbs wonders why many on the left aren't happy with the Obama administration.

Tapping Simpson was a mistake to begin with. He has previously referred to seniors as "greedy geezers" and rambled on at length about how he can't stand people who want to protect Social Security for future generations:

Let me tell you, everything that Bush and Clinton or Obama have suggested with regard to Social Security doesn't affect anyone over sixty, and who are the people howling and bitching the most? The people over sixty. This makes no sense. You've got to scrub out [of] the equation the AARP, the Committee for the Preservation of Social Security and Medicare, the Gray Panthers, the Pink Panther, the whatever. Those people are lying... [They] don't care a whit about their grandchildren...not a whit.

Here's a thought: How about, in lieu of asking Simpson to resign, we just scrap the whole deficit reduction commission (also informally known among netroots activists as the "catfood commission"?) It isn't serving any useful purpose that we can see. To date all it appears to have accomplished is generate bad press for the administration. It never should have been created.

We don't need a commission to figure out how to bring the federal budget back into balance, because there are a number of obvious solutions: End the occupation of Afghanistan, lower our expenditures in Iraq, cut defense spending, let the Bush tax cuts expire, and raise additional revenue by closing corporate tax loopholes and ending subsidies for gargantuan companies that don't need them.

That's the way to reduce the deficit, responsibly.

Don't let that computer idle... put it to work for the greater good!

When I was a child, growing up in the rural West Virginia community where I was born, I learned that resources aren't limitless, and the smartest thing a person can do is use everything they have wisely and efficiently. This conservation ethic likewise served me well during my time in the United States Army. As a scout, I needed to be able to carry around anything I might need on my back. Wasting space wasn't an option. Reusing tools was a necessity.

Most of us aren't Army scouts, but that doesn't mean we have to be wasteful. Especially when it comes to our gadgets, which we own an increasing number of. A few folks are good at turning off their computers when they're not using them. But I suspect far more people just leave their computers on in an idle state when they're doing something else, like answering the phone or fixing a meal.

If you're somebody who falls into the latter group, there's something easy you can do to avoid wasting the energy your computer is consuming while it's idle.

First, a little background.

As many readers are aware, scientific funding in our country (whether public or private) can unfortunately be very limited and hard to find, especially during a recession. What a funding shortfall often results in is a lot of data without enough computers to process the information. This is where BOINC (Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing) comes in.

The program, started at the University of California, Berkley's Space Sciences Laboratory, is designed to tap the unused power of a personal computer.

What BOINC does is make use of your computer while it is idle to process through the backlog of scientific data. You can come back to your computer at any time and BOINC will stand down so you can resume whatever you were doing or start a new task. BOINC has already helped make possible several Pulsar discoveries important to the science of astrophysics.

Readers concerned about user privacy and the security of their computer need not worry about losing peace of mind by participating in this project, because BOINC is free software (free as in free speech, not free beer). That means it doesn't have any proprietary blobs of code "phoning home" to the likes of Google or Facebook.

I am fan of the Einstein@home project (which focuses on astrophysics) but there are many other projects out there that you can participate in which make use of the BOINC network. The UW runs such a project... Rosetta@home.

You can see a full list at BOINC's website.

The software can be downloaded from this page. Those who use any of the popular GNU/Linux distributions (like Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, Mandriva, or Gentoo) should be able to grab the software out of their distro's repositories.

Chances are, if you've got a computer, there's going to be times when it's powered on and running, but you're busy, away, or relaxing, as I noted earlier. Why not set up your computer to serve the greater good during those times?

Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski trails challenger in Alaska primary

Surprising news from the Last Frontier this evening: Lisa Murkowski, one of only three incumbent Republican senators left in the greater Pacific Northwest, is running behind her Sarah Palin-backed challenger Joe Miller, who appears to have benefited substantially from tea party organizations based in the Lower Forty-Eight. As of midnight Pacific Time (11 PM Alaska Time), Miller led Murkowski by 2,881 votes, with two-thirds of Alaska' precincts reporting.

Republican primary for U.S. Senate (see current results)
Lisa Murkowski: 48.29% (40,577 votes)
Joe Miller: 51.71% (43,458 votes)

Alaska's Republican voters are very right-wing, so it figures that Miller's supporters tried to discredit Murkowski by calling her a liberal:

The California-based Tea Party Express reported spending $600,000 on behalf of Miller with ads that labeled Murkowski a liberal who is prone to voting with the Democrats.

Voters were getting robocalls until the last minute from Palin, former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, and former Alaska Lt. Gov. Loren Leman, saying the country is in crisis and Miller is the man to straighten it out. Those calls were financed by Miller, who raised $180,000 for his campaign.

I didn't think I would ever have an occasion to come to Lisa Murkowski's defense, but there's always a first time for everything. I agree heartily with Senator Murkowski that she is no liberal.

Real liberals support a strong common wealth that is wisely invested for the common good, well-regulated markets to ensure broader prosperity, mutual responsibility, civil rights for all, jobs that pay a living wage, walkable neighborhoods, clean air to breathe and clean water to drink, the conservation and stewardship of our public lands, police and fire protection, excellent public schools, and an effective government that is open and efficient.

Senator Murkowski does not agree with those policy directions, nor does she agree with the principles that underly them. She is unabashedly conservative. And yet her opponent's supporters are calling her a liberal.

I have to wonder... why'd they stop there? Why not be really dishonest and call Murkowski a Stalin-worshiping, Marxist-adoring Communist, since Miller's tea party crew obviously has no compulsion about lying to their fellow Republican voters?

If Murkowski doesn't bounce back in later returns, she will become the second sitting senator to have been ousted by her own party this year. Alaska is heavily Republican, so it's likely Miller would pick up Murkowski's seat, but if he emerges as the nominee, that could make Sitka mayor Scott McAdams' candidacy more attractive to Alaska voters in the general election.

In other news, Sean Parnell looks set to the Republican nominee in the gubernatorial race. His opponent will be Democrat Ethan Berkowitz, who is surviving a challenge from Democratic legislator Hollis French. Berkowitz previously ran against Don Young last cycle and nearly won.

Voters are also approving a right wing ballot measure that restricts the ability of young women to get an abortion. Under Measure 2, a girl younger than seventeen cannot legally abort a pregnancy unless her parents have been notified. Similar poorly-conceived laws are already on the books in more than two dozen states.

Apple leapfrogs Google, seeks patent for future device that would spy on its users

It appears that Apple has aspirations to overtake Google as the number one threat to user privacy. The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:

It looks like Apple, Inc., is exploring a new business opportunity: spyware and what we're calling "traitorware." While users were celebrating the new jailbreaking and unlocking exemptions, Apple was quietly preparing to apply for a patent on technology that, among other things, would allow Apple to identify and punish users who take advantage of those exemptions or otherwise tinker with their devices.

The creepy details are as follows:

Apple's patent provides for a device to investigate a user's identity, ostensibly to determine if and when that user is "unauthorized," or, in other words, stolen. More specifically, the technology would allow Apple to record the voice of the device's user, take a photo of the device's user's current location or even detect and record the heartbeat of the device's user. Once an unauthorized user is identified, Apple could wipe the device and remotely store the user's "sensitive data." Apple's patent application suggests it may use the technology not just to limit "unauthorized" uses of its phones but also shut down the phone if and when it has been stolen.

But it doesn't end there.

However, Apple's new technology would do much more. This patented device enables Apple to secretly collect, store and potentially use sensitive biometric information about you. This is dangerous in two ways: First, it is far more than what is needed just to protect you against a lost or stolen phone. It's extremely privacy-invasive and it puts you at great risk if Apple's data on you are compromised. But it's not only the biometric data that are a concern. Second, Apple's technology includes various types of usage monitoring — also very privacy-invasive. This patented process could be used to retaliate against you if you jailbreak or tinker with your device in ways that Apple views as "unauthorized" even if it is perfectly legal under copyright law.

This isn't a joke, folks. This is from a real patent application. Specifically, United States Patent Application 20100207721.

What is Apple's objective here? Are they trying to turn the iPhone into the eyePhone? Create a zillion telescreens that they can control from Cupertino?

Words really can't describe how wrong this idea is. It's just wrong.

Apple executives apparently envision a day in the not-too-distant future when it will become feasible for them to mass-produce this technology and build it into their devices (phones, music players, computers, tablets... and whatever else they sell). Why else are they trying to patent traitorware?

Whatever happened to the company that once told us — in a memorable ad announcing the Macintosh a quarter century ago — that it wanted to save us from the kind of world depicted in George Orwell's 1984?

Like Google, Apple is turning against the very ideals espoused by its founders in its pursuit of profit. Here's what Steve Jobs said back in 1984 about the 1984 ad:

It is now 1984. It appears IBM wants it all. Apple is perceived to be the only hope to offer IBM a run for its money. Dealers initially welcoming IBM with open arms now fear an IBM-dominated and-controlled future. They are increasingly turning back to Apple as the only force that can ensure their future freedom. IBM wants it all and is aiming its guns on its last obstacle to industry control: Apple. Will Big Blue dominate the entire computer industry? The entire information age? Was George Orwell right?

How ironic that Apple is now trying to prove George Orwell right.

Port of Seattle's CEO doesn't want a raise

Full Disclosure: Gael Tarleton, who represents the people of King County on the Seattle Port Commission, is a member of NPI's Board of Directors.

Earlier today, I noticed that multiple media outlets had picked up on a media advisory issued yesterday by Puget Sound Sage (originally the Seattle Alliance for Good Jobs and Housing for Everyone), which was sent out with this eye-catching subject: Port of Seattle CEO Tay Yoshitani, second highest-paid public employee in state, poised to receive 4 percent raise while workers face layoffs, decreasing wages.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer and Publicola were among those that picked up on the Sage release, summarizing its contents and mentioning today's Port Commission meeting without bothering to dig deeper. I figured there was more to the story, since I've spent a not insignificant amount of time learning about the Port and how it operates. (I hear regularly from more than one commissioner, and not long ago, I actually participated in a Port retreat as an observer).

As it turns out, Puget Sound Sage failed to provide some important context to the reporters and bloggers that they reached out to with their release.

Specifically, they did not explain that the Commission is required — by Article II, Section B of the Port's bylaws — to evaluate the CEO's performance and salary annually, and to approve the CEO's objectives for the next year. This annual evaluation and review has taken place at the end of August the last few years.

The Sage release made it sound like the Commission is so happy with Yoshitani that they wanted to give him a raise, when in fact they were obligated to look at his salary — as well as his past performance and plans for the future — during this meeting. The release likewise made it sound like Yoshitani was quietly seeking a raise, when in fact he does not want one.

How do I know? Because prior to today's meeting, the CEO preemptively requested that the Commission not consider a salary increase for him today or at any future meeting within the next year. Yoshitani did the same thing in 2009 — this will be the second consecutive time he has explicitly asked that he not be given a raise.

It is true that Yoshitani could have been eligible for a raise — and was — because the Commission rated his performance as CEO "Outstanding". However, the Commission was not obligated to up Yoshitani's pay as a consequence of giving him high marks. (Commissioner John Creighton seemed to be under that impression; consequently, he abstained from the performance vote).

Sage could have found all this out if they had waited to comment, like I did, but they did not. About an hour after the Commission meeting had convened, they issued a new release declaring that "the pay raise vote had been canceled".

It included this cryptic paragraph:

Charla Skaggs, port corporate media officer for external affairs, said an evaluation of Tay’s job performance remained on the agenda but the subsequent pay raise agenda item was removed. When asked why, she said news reporters and members of the public would need to ask that question directly to commissioners.

I suspect that Charla wasn't more forthcoming because the Commission was in the midst of a public meeting and had not yet gotten to the relevant agenda items, which were slated to be discussed near the end. The Port's bylaws require that the conversation about the CEO's performance, salary, and future plans must happen in public. By opting not to elaborate to Sage, Charla was honoring the Port's bylaws, and deferring to the popularly elected Commission, which governs the Port.

So, contrary to what Sage suggested to reporters and editors, Port CEO Tay Yoshitani was not "poised" to receive a raise because he didn't want one.

It would have been nice of them to acknowledge that rather important fact.

POSTSCRIPT: The Seattle Times' Keith Ervin has written a solid, well-researched story about today's Port Commission meeting, which clearly explains that Yoshitani didn't want a raise. Kudos to the Times for providing that context, upfront. Erica Barnett has likewise followed up for Publicola.

Surprise! Studies show pesticides cause ADHD

Proving once again how stupid it is that we use millions of pounds of pesticides to "cleanse" our crops of insects and other pests, several new studies have found a link between a class of chemicals called organophosphates and ADHD:

Organophosphates are a set of common pesticides that work by attacking the nervous systems of insects. When people are exposed to high levels of the chemicals, they can develop anxiety, confusion impaired concentration, and other serious symptoms. More recently, scientists have started to wonder how chronic exposure at low levels might be affecting people, especially kids, whose nervous systems are still developing.

To find out, Eskenazi and colleagues followed up on a long-term study that has tracked more than 300 Mexican-American women in an agriculturally intensive region of California since they first became pregnant in 1999 or 2000. When the women were pregnant, the researchers measured levels of pesticide breakdown products in their urine. More recently, they collected urine samples from the kids and evaluated measures of attention.

Here's what they found:

By age five, the team reported in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, kids who had been exposed to higher levels of OP pesticides in the womb were five times more likely to have an attention deficit disorder. The finding was stronger for boys.

We already know that drugs and alcohol can seriously interfere with a pregnancy... but people don't seem to appreciate that toxic chemicals are likewise toxic and not appropriate for consumption by anybody, let alone pregnant women. That's probably because we don't see the chemicals. But they're still there.

If I went into a grocery store and slapped toxicity stickers on all of the produce that came from fields sprayed with pesticides, I'm willing to wager that sales of such produce would dwindle to almost nothing. Most people would opt to buy organically grown produce, even if it costs more. (They might eat less as a consequence, but that might not be a bad thing, either).

Because pesticide residue lingers on fruits and vegetables, the findings suggest that people either buy organic or take the time to wash their produce well.

Washing "conventionally grown" produce throughly can help remove pesticide residue on the surface of fruits and vegetables, but it doesn't eliminate systemic pesticides, which are contained within the plant.

That's why it's important to buy organic, locally-grown food whenever possible, either through a farmer's market, or from a store like PCC. (PCC maintains a handy chart depicting when local, organic produce is in season).

We in the Pacific Northwest are lucky to have several terrific organizations working to promote and strengthen sustainable agriculture, particularly the Oregon and Washington Tilth Associations. Follow the links to their websites to learn more about gardening and farming naturally.