Rep. Ray Begaye discusses the benefits of the production and processing of industrial hemp in New Mexico.

U.S. Fossil Fuel Carbon Dioxide Map (red = most polluted, blue = least polluted)

I'm certain more people than ever in history are interested in the subject of global air pollution monitoring, as a deteriorating cluster of nuclear power plant disasters in Northern Japan are already contaminating the Earth's atmosphere with deadly radioactive emissions, which will blow across the Pacific Ocean and in other directions to all points downwind until they settle back to Earth, on us, our land, in our water, and into our food-streams.

From the Wall Street Journal's Monday, March 13, reporting about nuclear fallout from the meltdown in Japan, which has taken many turns for the worst since then...

If the Japanese nuclear core were to melt, certain radioactive materials, such as iodine, strontium and cesium, would also be released. These particles are one-quarter the size of a grain of salt and can be carried by winds. The larger the grains, the more quickly they would fall out of the air.

The  U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics just released its U.S. IMPORT AND EXPORT PRICE INDEXES – FEBRUARY 2011 - reporting ongoing significant price increase trends in core sectors of the global economy - like US import and export food and energy prices - that indicate US annual inflation in the double-digits for many products and services impacting daily life in America... like the price of gasoline, milk and bread. The impacts worldwide - especially in developing countries - will be staggering... radicalizing.

and crop circles are connected - and warn us what is coming. Why earth events, animal and bird death, and what the calender holds.

View this VERY INTERESTING AND INFORMATIVE VIDEO 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KtitwJRRLE

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Uploaded by tatoott1009 on Mar 6, 2011

Kendall Law Group Investigates The Lubrizol Corporation Acquisition for Shareholders

DALLAS, Mar 14, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) --

Kendall Law Group, led by former federal judge Joe Kendall, is investigating The Lubrizol Corporation (NYSE: LZ) for shareholders in connection with the proposed acquisition by Berkshire Hathaway Inc. The national securities firm's investigation seeks to determine whether Lubrizol and its Board breached their fiduciary duties by entering into the agreement without properly shopping for a deal that would provide better value for shareholders. If you are a Lubrizol shareholder and would like additional information about your rights, contact the Kendall Law Group at 877-744-3728 or by email at skendall [at] kendalllawgroup [dot] com.

On March 14, 2011, the companies announced the definitive merger agreement under which Lubrizol would be acquired by Berkshire Hathaway, in a transaction valued at approximately $9 billion. Under the terms of the agreement, Lubrizol stockholders will receive $135.00 in cash for each share of Lubrizol/LZ common stock held. According to Thompson/First Call, analysts have set a price target as high as $148.00 per share for Lubrizol stock. Earlier this year, Lubrizol reported higher-than-expected fourth quarter profits and issued a "bullish forecast for 2011," with Chief Executive Officer James Hambrick stating: "I reiterate my deep confidence in our ability to deliver an eighth consecutive record year of earnings." The firm's investigation seeks to determine whether Lubrizol and its Board negotiated a deal that provides the best value available to shareholders.

EPA's 2005 National Air Toxins Assessment looks at human health impacts from estimated, chronic inhalation exposures based on emissions data from the
2005 National Emissions Inventory for hazardous air pollutants, assuming these emissions remain constant throughout one's lifetime

On March 11, 2011, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sent a press release (below) and held conference calls supporting release of the fourth update of the National Air Toxics Assessment (NATA) - a computer tool that helps federal, state, local governments and other stakeholders better understand the potential health risks from exposure to air toxics.  The EPA  states: "the National Air Toxics Assessment (NATA) contains 2005 emissions data submitted primarily from the states for 178 pollutants. Models are used to make broad estimates of health risks for areas of the country.  The tool is not designed to determine actual health risks to individuals living in these areas." "Because the data submitted varies from state to state, it is also not possible to use the data to compare risks between different areas of the country."

As someone who lives in Cleveland, Ohio, which the Federal EPA and their NATA prove is highly polluted and unhealthy, I truly appreciate access to all environmental data management and mapping services the EPA may provide, as real-time as possible. These federal government tools offer citizens access to information that allows us to make better life-decisions - like where to live - and empowers us to be better environmental stewards - like shutting down coal pollution in our own backyards.

As we have seen on here as of late with a thread being brought forth with trash, a picture and twisted unproven wrong and slandering to many people in content; and no motive but to flame others. Defamation and slander are a serious thing. Recently on My-Space a teenager committed suicide (and many others as well) and we now have bullying laws. Once the legal community gets involved, site owners and all of those that are the bully are are put to task.

U.S. Commerce Department Announces Launch of i6 Green Challenge to Promote Clean Energy Innovation and Economic Growth

U.S. departments of Agriculture, Commerce and Energy, along with the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Science Foundation, support entrepreneurship initiative

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Commerce Department’s Economic Development Administration (EDA) and its Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship today announced the opening of its $12 million i6 Green Challenge in partnership with the U.S. departments of Agriculture and Energy, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the National Science Foundation, and Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology and U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. ‪

EDA will award up to $1 million to each of six teams around the country with the most innovative ideas to drive technology commercialization and entrepreneurship in support of a green innovation economy, increased U.S. competitiveness and new jobs. Its partner agencies will award more than $6 million in additional funding to i6 Green winners.

Wherever you live in America, there should be some near-by gathering, event, public meeting or celebration in support of Hemp History Week - May 2nd-8th 2011 - and if there isn't, you may help organize one in your community. Check their website for planned events - and how to organize events - and do it ASAP, as events registered by March 15th may get hemp product samples to distribute, and that is worth hustling-for.

The sponsors and supporters of Hemp History Week include Vote Hemp, the Hemp Industry Association, and leading hemp manufacturers, natural foods retailers, celebrities, farmers, historians and hemp advocates. "Hemp History Week is all about celebrating the goodness of hemp", and that is something all these organizers and millions of other people are working hard to make legal in every state across America - like New Mexico is succeeding with this week - to making hemp agriculture legal in America and worldwide, as is the mission of Vote Hemp and other advocacy organizations, large and small.

Data provided by U.S. Census Bureau.

Cleveland Sees Plunge in Population, reports the Wall Street Journal today, announcing: "A larger-than-expected exodus from Cleveland during the past decade shrunk the city's population by 17% to about 397,000, according to U.S. Census data released Wednesday." That's right, Cleveland's population has crashed below the 400K floor for the first time since around the start of the 20th Century, which triggers all sorts of unsustainable, shrinking, un-re-imaginable financial and political realities for leadership and citizens here.

Perhaps the only silver lining is that this proof of Cleveland political and leadership failure will have a significant price of leaders' heads. From the Wall Street Journal:

Political observers said the decline could tilt the balance of political power in one of America's most hotly contested swing states.

"Ohio is expected to lose two congressional districts, and this big decline in Cleveland suggests that both could come out of northeastern Ohio," a Democratic stronghold, said John Green, a University of Akron political-science professor.

From the Metro Desk of the DeterminerWeekly.Com and the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com and www.determinerweekly.com)

In the wake of a felony conviction and the jailing of an Akron, Oh. parent for sending her two children to a neighboring predominantly White school district with the hope of getting them a better education, the Rev. Al Sharpton is calling on Ohio Republican Gov. John Kasich to push the state legislature to comply with a longstanding mandate by the Ohio Supreme Court to revise its unconstitutional system of funding public education.

That mandate was issued nearly 14 years ago when the Ohio Supreme Court ruled in the state's landmark constitutional case of DeRolph. vs State of Ohio that its system of funding education partially through property taxes is unconstitutional. In its unprecedented decision Ohio's high court said that the state legislature's current school funding method has created property rich and property poor school districts to the detriment of poor children, and in violation of the requirement of Ohio's Constitution that the state legislature provide equal access to a “thorough and efficient” education for all of Ohio's children.

“Yes,” said Sharpton to the question of whether Kasich should lead the charge for the state legislature to comply with the Ohio Supreme Court's mandate to revise its inequitable system of funding education, a question posed by the DeterminerWeekly.Com and the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com during a press conference on Thursday.

State Rep Ray Begaye (NM-4) discusses the positive impact of biotech and
the potential offered by hemp biotech in his state

Attached is New Mexico House Bill 565 (.pdf - 214 kb), and below is the press release announcing INDUSTRIAL HEMP BILL RECEIVING SUPPORT FROM NM LEGISLATORS - the House Agriculture and Water Resources Committee has passed Bill HB 565 relating to agriculture: Providing for licensing, growing, selling and processing of “Industrial Hemp - Santhica”.

House Bill No. 565 is sponsored by Raye Begaye (D-NM 4th District ), NM State Representative 7th term: Vice Chair; House Agriculture and Water Resources Committee; Concurrent Jurisdiction for Tribes, Nations, Pueblos and the State of New Mexico.

The progess of this bill was announced by Ray Begaye - from their press release: "House Bill 565 passed the agriculture committee by a vote of 8-l this past Monday.  The bill will go to the Judiciary Committee and then onto the Floor of NM legislature.  House Bill 565 upon passage will stimulate the New Mexico economy with producers, processors, manufacture, and growers."

New Mexico Industrial Hemp Coalition Contacts are Bernice Muskrat, Attorney at Law and CFO for The Native International Solutions, Inc. - Bernicemuskrat [at] yahoo [dot] com - 575-759-4412... and Gloria Castillo, President; New Mexico Hemp Commission - gjc777 [at] gmail [dot] com - 505-554-5476. They are taking donations through the non-profit Rural Coalition to support these efforts.

They are each and all to be congratulated!!

Among the reasons New Mexico passed this bill, from their Press Release about NMHB 565 and industrial hemp: 

I just received an email from the EPA announcing it "updated its database that helps Americans understand the health and environmental impacts of electricity generation" and now provides a useful public interface - "Power Profiler is a user friendly online application that uses eGRID data to show air emissions information and the type of electricity generation, such as coal or nuclear, in various regions of the country.  By simply entering a zip code and selecting a utility, users can learn more about where their electricity comes from and what impact it has on air quality and the environment."

Good morning,

The state of the American education system today is unacceptable. As many as one quarter of American students don’t finish high school. We've fallen to ninth place in the proportion of young people with college degrees. The quality of our math and science education lags behind many other nations.

For the sake of the next generation, and America's economic future, this has to change.

Steve Martin’s The Underpants - Matthew Earnest returns to direct farcical comedy at Beck Center

Lakewood, OH—Beck Center for the Arts presents The Underpants, Steve Martin’s contemporary adaptation of a turn-of-the-century satire by German Expressionist Carl Sternheim, on the Mackey Main Stage, April 1 through 23, 2011. Show times are 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 3 p.m. Sundays. The performance on Saturday, April 9 is sold out for a private event.

In The Underpants, Martin brings his comic genius and sophisticated literary style to Sternheim’s classic 1910 farce. His hilarious version opened Off-Broadway in 2002 to critical acclaim. The New York Times called the show “laugh-out-loud funny” and the Village Voice said it was “hilarious and bawdy.”

EPA Awards $32 Million to Understand Health Impacts of Air Pollution

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has awarded $32 million to fund four new Clean Air Research Centers at universities conducting cutting edge air pollution research. The research will focus on the impacts of air pollution mixtures on people’s health. It is important to understand the health risks associated with exposure to multiple air pollutants because people are exposed to more than one pollutant at a time.“These centers are critical to understanding how to improve air quality and protect Americans’ health from complex mixtures of air pollutants,” said Dr. Paul Anastas, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Research and Development. “The centers will focus on important scientific questions remaining in air research.”

Winter 2011 Issue of Energy Matters Now Available Energy Matters, the quarterly newsletter for the U.S. Department of Energy's Industrial Technologies Program (ITP), provides in-depth articles to help industry professionals save energy, reduce costs, and increase productivity. The Winter 2011 issue includes the following:

Environmental Justice - It ain't a RACE thing - it's an INJUSTICE thing

As thoroughly documented on realNEO, over a course of many years - and now being thoroughly addressed by the EPA through their courses of action - Cleveland has environmental justice problems to solve.

Right now - through April 8, 2011 - the EPA is asking for your help determining how they carry out that responsibility, as they want public comment on THEIR Guide to Providing Environmental Justice for YOU.

As quoted from the EPA's Interim Guidance on Considering Environmental Justice During the Development of an Action, introduced and linked below: "Environmental justice (EJ) is central to the Agency’s mission and is the responsibility of everyone at EPA".

At the beginning of the 21st Century - a time when the pace of global evolution was certain to be astounding in every way, in accelerating change each day - especially as driven by transformational new Information Technologies (IT) and services - a serious, young college computer science student wrote some historic collaboration software, in his dorm-room, to help his fellow students communicate more effectively in their evolving, un-tethering, socially-networked world, and that software has been helping citizens freely interconnect with greater impact each day since, to save the world.

The early days of this software are beloved, in real geek-lore:

In 2000, permanent Internet connections were at a premium for University students, so two students set up a wireless bridge between their student dorms to share one of the students' ADSL modem connection among eight students. While this was an extremely luxurious situation at that time, something was missing: There was no means to discuss or share simple things.

This inspired the other student to work on a small news site with a built-in web board, allowing the group of friends to leave each other notes about the status of the network, to announce where they were having dinner, or to share some noteworthy news items.

The software did not have a name until the day after that student moved out after graduation. The group decided to put the internal website on-line so they could stay in touch, keep sharing interesting findings, and narrate snippets of their personal lives. While looking for a suitable domain name...

Here's a link to the NATIONAL CONFERENCE FOR MEDIA REFORM which will be held in Boston, Massachusetts, April 8 to April 10, 2011.  The presenters include Amy Goodman from Democracy Now, Harvard's Lawrence Lessic, CraigsList's Craig Newmark (who went to Case Western), and many others.  Tickets are $175.00.  

In my opinion, Realneo.us is a tooth in the media reform gear...

Location

Sunset over Lake Erie from Whiskey Island, on a nearly perfect Summer's day. Dedicated to Citizen Ed Hauser.

Dear Mr. Wolstein,

Please hold off on using the Forum Architects' plans for your redevelopment in the Flats, as much has improved in the prospects for this city and region since they were conceived - there is new energy, life and opportunity coming into Cleveland that will improve the prospects for this most important historic site that I've been vocal in my disappointment to see go.

As you are moving forward in new directions, Cleveland and regional leaders including myself must move forward in many new directions previously inconceivable. As such, planning needs frequent re-visioning - and may in fact be open sourced, real-time and community enabled with world class information technology, which we'll be developing more of in Northeast Ohio in the future.

Most significant, we are in the process of removing from our community the dangerous pollution emitted from the coal burning at FirstEnergy Lake Shore (already decommissioning), MCCO, in University Circle, and Cleveland Thermal, next door to your site (your greatest liability, easily made an asset), and the outrageous environmental injustice from Mittal and some other industrial operations - and the direct and fugitive emissions from the mobile pollution sources servicing them - ships, trains and trucks  - that are just not safe for dense urban neighborhoods, which we must save and restore. There are economically viable solutions to all these challenges - it does not need to be this way!

Dear Mr. Mowry, Chief Information Officer, Cuyahoga County, Ohio:

Welcome Home.

Without a doubt, you hold the most opportune and important office in the region, today, and I wish you great success.

Cleveland Institute of Art BA and Kent State University Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative planning Master Joseph Stanley
had a more intelligent design for the future of Cleveland than the leaders of our community have embraced - BIG SURPRISE... he's not an idiot!

Dear Governor Kasich:

Show REAL NEO You Are Serious About Ohio's Future By Ending The $3.5+ Billion ODOT I-90 Bridge Fiasco Here!

I'm sure, with little effort, you may find leadership in Columbus and the great-big-real-world to brief you on the runaway stupidity and corruption surrounding the "planning" by corrupt "idiots", as you say, at Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT), to replace our poorly maintained I-90 bridge over the polluted Cuyahoga River into Downtown Cleveland's Innerbelt "Trench". My good friend Ed Hauser was leading the battle against this stupidity before he was killed by pollution exposure here, and I am asking you to take his place fighting for our citizens. The war is well documented here on realNEO - and nowhere else on Earth. Google "realNEO ODOT Dream" or search within realNEO for links to ODOT, Bridge, Cleveland and Hauser.

To speed-up your assessment, I include below some links I have surfaced from our years of battling government stupidity, corruption and incompetence with ODOT here, as well as my most recent posting on realNEO about this matter.