Day: March 18, 2014

Sunoco oil pipeline ruptures and spills into Ohio nature preserve

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oak glen nature preserve

A major oil pipeline owned by Sunoco Logistics Partners LP leaked thousands of gallons of crude oil into a nature preserve in southwest Ohio late on Monday.

Between 7,000 and 10,000 gallons of sweet crude leaked into the Oak Glen Nature Preserve about a quarter of a mile from the Great Miami River, according to early estimates from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.

The leak, which occurred on a line operated by Mid-Valley Pipeline Co, a division of Sunoco, was discovered at 8:20 p.m. EDT on Monday. The company shut the line, which helped reduce the pressure of the leaking oil, an EPA spokeswoman said, but it was unclear if oil was still spewing from the pipe.

Some oil reached a wetland a mile away and on Tuesday, clean-up crews were preparing to vacuum the wetland, located 20 miles north of Cincinnati.

The oil did not appear to have reached the Great Miami River [yet], though tests were still being completed, the EPA said…

The pipeline will be repaired and returned to traffic asap. We know what Sunoco’s priorities are.

Prison, indictment, no problem in Illinois primary

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In the Illinois primary elections, today, candidates on Chicago’s Democratic ballot will include someone who served a prison term for bribery, another who is due to go on trial on bribery charges this spring and a third charged with bank fraud.

“It’s a terrible indictment” of the local political culture, said Dick Simpson, a former Chicago alderman who teaches at University of Illinois at Chicago. “There is still a patronage-based political army on the West Side of Chicago.”

Political experts say all three candidates are either guaranteed victory or heavily favored to win.

The candidates include Isaac “Ike” Carothers, a former Chicago alderman who was sentenced to 28 months for bribery and tax fraud, and is now running for commissioner of the Cook County Board. He was released from prison in late 2011.

Derrick Smith, a state representative, was expelled by the Illinois House in 2012 after he was charged with taking a $7,000 bribe, but then won his seat back and is now running for re-election. His trial date has been set for the spring.

A third candidate, state Representative La Shawn K. Ford, has been charged with bank fraud for alleged actions before he was elected a legislator in 2006. He is running unopposed in his primary…

Chicago, the state’s largest city, ranked first in the nation in public corruption over the past three decades and has had 1,531 public corruption convictions since 1976, according to a 2012 analysis of U.S. Department of Justice statistics…

Ahead of Tuesday’s vote, both Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle have urged voters not to back the younger Carothers. They have endorsed another candidate, attorney Blake Sercye.

But both Smith and Ford have the backing of powerful state House Speaker Michael Madigan.

It’s been a long time since I lived in Chicago…but I recall standing offers from alley mechanics to get me any car I wanted. Cheap. Stolen, of course. I could pick out model, color, options. It would come with license and title.

Feds finally roll over for a study of cannabis as PTSD treatment

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medical marijuana

The U.S. government has signed off on a long-delayed study looking at marijuana as a treatment for military veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder, a development that drug researchers are hailing as a major shift in U.S. policy.

The Department of Health and Human Services’ decision surprised marijuana advocates who have struggled for decades to secure federal approval for research into the drug’s medical uses.

The proposal from the University of Arizona was long ago cleared by the Food and Drug Administration, but researchers had been unable to purchase marijuana from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The agency’s Mississippi research farm is the only federally-sanctioned source of the drug.

In a letter last week, HHS cleared the purchase of medical marijuana by the studies’ chief financial backer, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, which supports medical research and legalization of marijuana and other drugs.

“MAPS has been working for over 22 years to start marijuana drug development research, and this is the first time we’ve been granted permission to purchase marijuana from NIDA,” the Boston-based group said in a statement…

Which serves to reinforce the fact that it doesn’t matter whether we have a conservative or liberal government in Washington, DC. Both are constituted of cowards who fear science almost as much as they fear the ignorance of voters who assure their power and petty lordships. They follow, ignoring every opportunity to lead.

Political times change and that’s what changes policies and protocols. The brave men and women who rejected the jive War on Drugs and fought for real change for decades have moved the public far enough to allow opportunist politicians to join the struggle for a sane drugs policy. Or at least put their pedicured toes into the water.

While more than 1 million Americans take medical marijuana — usually for chronic pain — rigorous medical research into the drug’s effects has been limited, in part due to federal restrictions.

Marijuana remains a Schedule I substance under the federal government’s Controlled Substance Act. That means the drug is considered a high-risk for abuse with no accepted medical applications.

Most politicians know better. Most bureaucrats know better. The folks who deserve the credit for this tiny advance are the doctors and stoners, scientists and honest advocates who built a successful political movement strong enough to overcome the two gangs of political hacks we are allowed to vote for.

US medical-industrial complex always knows how to make a profit

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Millions of Americans see the doctor each year with worries about a persistent or severe headache or migraine…And according to a new University of Michigan Medical School study, 12 percent of those visits end in a brain scan being ordered for the patient. Those brain scans add up to a total cost of roughly $1 billion a year.

Health experts say it’s a waste of resources, given the extremely low probability of a scan finding a serious issue, such as a malignant brain tumor…

A number of national guidelines have been issued in the last decade advising doctors to refrain from ordering scans for those who complain of headaches. But the frequency of brain scans continues to go up, suggesting patients are advocating for them — an expensive way to get reassurance that a brain tumor or aneurysm isn’t lurking inside the cerebrum.

The answer might be better educating the public about the costs verses the risk, says Callaghan. On top of the fact that statistics show a scan is unlikely to find anything serious, it also exposes the brain to radiation.

And monetarily speaking, the true costs of all these unnecessary scans could be higher. The research doesn’t factor in additional costs, such as follow-up tests or treatment for minor issues discovered as a result of the scans.

Callaghan says the bottom line is this: trust your doctor. If he or she doesn’t think a scan is necessary, then you don’t need one.

Any journalist who avoids the question of greedy physicians/medical facilities operating their radiology department as a juicy little profit center hasn’t the foggiest idea what American healthcare is all about.